GIFT  OF 
SEELEY  W.  MUDD 

and 

GEORGE  I.  COCHRAN     MEYER  ELSASSER 
DR.  JOHN  R.  HAYNES    WILLIAM  L.  HONNOLD 
JAMES  R.  MARTIN         MRS.  JOSEPH  F.  SARTORI 

to  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SOUTHERN  BRANCH 


JOHN  FISKE 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


The  Great  Mystery 


"  BUT  what  avail  inadequate  words  to  reach 
The  innermost  of  Truth  ?     Who  shall  essay, 
Blinded  and  weak,  to  point  and  lead  the  way, 
Or  solve  the  mystery  in  familiar  speech  ? 
Yet,  if  it  be  that  something  not  thy  own, 

Some  shadow  of  the  Thought  to  which  our  schemes, 
Creeds,  cult,  and  ritual  are  at  best  but  dreams, 
Is  even  to  thy  unworthiness  made  known, 
Thou  mayst  not  hide  what  yet  thou  shouldst  not  dare 
To  utter  lightly,  lest  on  lips  of  thine 
The  real  seem  false,  the  beauty  undivine. 
So,  weighing  duty  in  the  scale  of  prayer, 
Give  what  seems  given  thee.     It  may  prove  a  seed 
Of  goodness  dropped  in  fallow-grounds  of  need." 

— WHITTIER. 


The   Great  Mystery 

Two  Studies  on  the  Same  Subject 


One  in  the  Book  of  Revelation 
the  Other  in  the  Book  of  Nature 


BY 


ELIZABETH  MILLER  JEFFERYS 

AND 

WILLIAM  HAMILTON  JEFFERYS,  A.M.,  M.D. 


"This  is  a  Great  Mystery." — EPH.  v.  32. 


PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE  W.  JACOBS  &  CO 
103-105  SOUTH  FIFTEENTH  STREET 


o  r\ 


Copyright,  1901,  by 
ELIZABETH  MILLER  JEFFERYS 

AND 
WILLIAM  HAMILTON  JEFFERYS. 


Preface 

3 

THE  books  of  God  are  two,  and  all  that  He  has 
taught  us  of  Himself,  His  works  and  ways; — His 
essential  Being  and  its  manifestations,  is  con- 
tained in  these  two  books.  And  they  must 
agree;  they  cannot  contradict  each  other;  for 
their  Author  is  one  and  the  same,  and  He  is 
Divine. 

If  we  do  not  feel  their  harmony,  it  is  because 

something  is  wanting  in  us,  not  in  them.    We 

5?  have  not  all  the  facts  in  the  case,  we  cannot 

understand  the  language  in  which  the  records 

are  written.     And  we  are  too  impatient,  we  can- 

~   not  wait. 

Men  are  realizing  more  and  more,  that  the 
teaching  of  the  Bible  is  progressive,  just  as  the 
teaching  of  Nature  is.  But  how  differently  men 
deal  with  the  two  books!  Nature  students  are 
reverent.  They  desire  ardently  to  learn  what 
Nature  has  to  teach,  they  search .  and  study 
to  draw  from  Nature  her  secrets.  But  Bible 

5 


6  Preface 

study  to-day  seems  to  mean  destructive  criti- 
cism. Jesus  did  not  so  deal  with  His  Father's 
book.  He  came  not  to  destroy  the  law  and  the 
prophets,  but  to  fulfil,  to  fill  up,  (that  which  was 
wanting).  His  teaching  was  a  development  of 
the  older  teaching,  but  the  germs  were  all  there. 
Who  can  doubt  that  there  are  other  great  truths 
whose  germs  lie  hidden  in  the  book  of  God, 
waiting  to  reward  the  searcher  who  has  the  rev- 
erent heart  and  the  childlike  spirit! 

Dr.  A.  J.  Mason,  after  conceding  that  the 
utmost  deference  should  be  paid  to  the  general 
opinion  of  Christians  of  past  ages,  goes  on  to 
say:  "This  by  no  means  excludes  the  necessity 
of  fresh  investigations  into  the  meaning  of  Scrip- 
ture. In  the  first  place,  there  are  large  tracts  of 
the  New  Testament l  which  have  never  received 
any  authoritative  interpretation,  and  which 
abundantly  repay  study;  and,  in  the  second 
place,  even  in  some  instances  where  it  may  be 
said  that  there  is  something  like  an  authoritative 
interpretation,  the  authority  is  mainly  concerned 
to  assert  a  general  principle  of  belief  which  must 
not  be  contravened,  rather  than  to  assert  that  the 

1  Are  there  not  large  tracts  in  the  Old  Testament  also  ? 


Preface  7 

belief  is  expressed  in  the  text  in  question.  It 
may  be  readily  conceded  that  the  Church  is,  in  a 
general  sense,  the  interpreter  of  Scripture,  with- 
out holding  that  a  long  current  interpretation  of  a 
particular  passage  is  critically  correct."1 

The  true  theological  method  of  regarding 
doctrine  is  thus  set  forth:  "It  considers  the 
doctrinal  substance  of  the  Scriptures  as  a  living 
seed,  capable  of  the  most  prolific  development. 
In  the  midst  of  the  most  unfavorable  influences, 
it  retains  the  formative  energy  by  which  it 
evokes  new  and  living  products  adapted  to  the 
times.  It  always  recurs  to  the  Scriptures,  and 
measures  the  products  by  this  canon,  but  those 
plants  which  spring  from  biblical  roots,  it  will 
neither  drive  back  into  their  roots  nor  cut  off."2 

I  ask  the  readers  of  the  First  Study  to  consider 
whether  the  doctrine  therein  set  forth  be  not  "a 
plant  springing  from  biblical  roots,"  "a  new  and 
living  product  adapted  to  the  times." 

The  Second  Study  is  intended  to  show  how 
the  lesson  taught  implicitly  in  the  Book  of 
Revelation,  lying  everywhere  in  germ  ready  to 

1  Mason's  "  Conditions  of  Our  Lord's  Life  on  Earth,"  p.  14. 

2  Hagenback's  "  History  of  Doctrine,"  p.  24. 


8  Preface 

spring  to  the  light,  is  taught  explicitly  and  most 
clearly  on  every  page  of  the  great  Book  of 
Nature;  thus  does  each  very  wonderfully  confirm 
and  complement  the  other.  The  second  argu- 
ment will  doubtless  meet  with  a  more  ready 
acceptance  than  the  first.  For  men's  ears  are 
ever  open  to  hear  Nature's  voices,  and  their 
hearts  to  receive  her  teachings. 

The  first  of  the  two  studies  in  this  book  was 
written  in  its  present  shape1  in  April,  1867,  thirty- 
three  years  ago,  the  intention  being  shortly  to 
recast  and  publish  it  in  book  or  pamphlet  form. 
After  much  thought,  it  was  decided  that  the  time 
had  not  yet  come. 

Since  then  many  things  have  changed.  The 
trend  of  modern  thought  both  religious  and 
scientific,  has  been  most  decidedly  in  the  direc- 
tion of  such  an  idea  of  God  as  is  set  forth  in  this 
study. 

One  who  was  unborn  when  this  paper  was 
written,  now  insists  that  it  should  see  the  light. 
He  has  offered  to  do  that  part  for  which  I  am 
quite  incompetent,  that  is,  to  prepare  the  second 
paper  showing  the  argument  from  the  Book  of 

1  That  of  a  letter  to  my  father. 


Preface  9 

Nature,  for  such  an  idea  of  God,  for  which 
special  studies  have  fitted  him.  It  would  seem 
that  the  time  indeed  has  come.  And  it  may  be 
that  I  have  been  spared  to  give  my  testimony 
before  I  go  hence.  So  that  I  dare  not  refuse. 
May  the  Divine  Spirit  accept  and  bless  our  work! 

E.  M.  J. 

Philadelphia,  November  2g,  zgoo. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation 


"  The  things  that  are  in  heaven  who  hath  searched  out,  and 
Thy  counsel  who  hath  known,  except  Thou  give  Wisdom,  and 
send  Thy  Holy  Spirit  from  above  ?  " — WISDOM  ix.  16,  17. 


go 

ZTbe  JSeloveD  anD  Ibonorefc  flbemorg 

of 
3fatber  anD  jflftotbet 


Note  Introductory  to  First  Study 

THE  reason  why  I  have  insisted  on  the  date 
(April  I4th,  1867)  of  the  following  letter  is  this:  In 
1884  there  appeared  anonymously  a  religious  ro- 
mance, "  Arius  the  Libyan,"  wherein  were  some 
things  that  I  might  be  accused  of  having  ap- 
propriated, had  my  article  been  written  after  that 
date.  I  wish  therefore  to  be  able  to  say  that  the 
following  letter  stands  just  as  it  was  written, 
seventeen  years  before  "Arius  the  Libyan"  was 
in  print.  I  have  indeed  omitted  a  few  things, 
some  because  they  were  of  a  personal  character, 
others  because  they  seemed  unnecessary,  but  I 
have  added  nothing  and  changed  nothing. 

The  notes  which  follow  the  letter  and  are 
marked  "A,  B,  C,"  and  so  on  to  "O,"  were 
part  of  the  original  document,  and  were  sent 
to  my  father  with  the  letter.  The  notes  inserted 
in  the  body  of  the  letter  and  the  footnotes  have 
been  added  in  preparing  it  for  publication. 

15 


April  i4th,  1867. 
MY  DEAR  FATHER: 

I  have  long  wished  to  have  a  talk  with 
you  on  a  subject  which  has  been  lying  very  deep 
in  my  heart  for  a  long  time;  but  the  subject  is  one 
so  difficult  to  broach,  and  so  difficult  to  treat, — the 
thoughts  which  I  have  had  are  so  hard  to  put  in 
words; — that  I  am  at  last  driven  to  a  strange 
plan  (under  the  circumstances)  that  of  throwing 
what  I  have  to  say  in  the  form  of  a  letter. 

I  ask  beforehand  your  indulgent  patience,  and 
if  anything  you  read  should,  as  it  very  possibly 
may,  startle  or  shock  you  by  its  very  newness 
and  strangeness, — when  I  tell  you  that  the  idea 
herein  developed  is  the  gradual  growth  of  ten 
years,  beginning  with  my  first  serious  thoughts 
of  religion, — a  conviction  gradually  deepening 
all  that  time,  until  I  have  at  last  found  courage  to 
give  it  a  tangible  shape, — I  am  sure  you  will  at 
least  not  accuse  me  of  intentional  irreverence  nor 
presumption.  I  take  heart,  remembering  how 
you  lately  commended  Robertson  for  his  bold- 
ness in  speaking  what  he  believed  to  be  the 
16 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     17 

truth,  even  when  it  conflicted  with  generally  re- 
ceived notions. 

At  various  periods  of  my  life,  but  chiefly  at 
the  beginning  of  my  religious  life,  my  mind  was 
exercised  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity;  not  as 
one  difficult  to  believe,  but  hard  to  get  hold  of, 
intangible.  I  could  not  see  exactly  what  I  was 

to  believe.  Once  I  heard  Dr.  B preach  a 

sermon  on  the  subject,  and  he  said  in  substance 
(I  cannot  remember  the  words)  that  we  might 
naturally  and  reasonably  have  concluded  that 
God's  mode  of  existence  would  be  different  from 
anything  we  know,  in  such  a  sense,  he  would 
say,  that  we  could  form  no  conception  of  it  from 
analogy.  That  struck  me  at  the  time  as  very 
deep,  and  for  a  time,  quieted  me.  I  have  since 
then,  seen  something  in  Trench,  deeper  and  more 
to  the  purpose,  although  it  may  be,  unconsciously 
so.  Robertson  (F.  W.)  on  this  subject  is  to  me 
very  vague  and  unsatisfactory,  Kingsley  not  much 
better. 

How  the  idea  that  I  am  about,  though  imper- 
fectly, to  develop,  first  took  root  in  my  mind  I 
can  hardly  tell.  Very  early  in  my  religious  life, 
it  came  to  me  by  a  sort  of  inspiration,  not  from 


i8  The  Great  Mystery 

any  book  or  word  of  man,  of  that  I  am  certain; 
although  I  have  since  met  with  many  passages 
in  various  authors,  especially  in  Trench,  which 
might,  I  thought,  have  suggested  it,  had  I  seen 
them  before.  The  more  I  have  studied  the  sub- 
ject (with  very  limited  means  and  capacities,  it  is 
true),  the  more  I  feel  that  what  I  have  found  is 
the  truth  of  God;  and  if  it  be  so,  then  why  hide 
it  in  my  own  breast;  and  if  not,  let  my  error  be 
enlightened. 

If  this  be  indeed,  as  I  believe  it  is,  a  truth 
taught  all  through  the  Bible,  although  for  a  rea- 
son, dimly  taught,  if  it  be  one  which  helps  us  to 
gain  by  analogy  a  clearer  comprehension  of  the 
mysterious  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  if  it  throw 
light  on  many  hitherto  mysterious  passages  of 
Scripture,  if  it  supply  a  great  and  craving  need 
in  the  human  heart,  one  that  in  the  effort  to  fill 
it  with  husks,  has  been  the  fruitful  source  of 
error, — is  it  not  worth  considering  by  those  who 
are  better  able  to  deal  with  it  than  I  ? 

I  can  better,  perhaps,  preface  by  that  "some- 
thing deeper"  from  Trench  to  which  I  have 
referred.  He  says  in  one  of  his  introductory 
chapters  to  the  Notes  on  the  Parables,  page  18: 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     19 

"Their  power  (that  is  of  the  analogies  in  the 
parables)  lies  in  the  harmony  unconsciously  felt 
by  all  men,  and  by  deeper  minds  continually  rec- 
ognized and  plainly  perceived,  between  the 
natural  and  the  spiritual  worlds,  so  that  analogies 
from  the  first  are  felt  to  be  something  more  than 
illustrations,  happily  but  yet  arbitrarily  chosen. 
They  are  arguments  and  may  be  alleged  as  wit- 
nesses, the  world  of  nature  being  throughout  a 
witness  for  the  world  of  spirit,  constituted  for 
that  very  end.  All  lovers  of  truth  readily  ac- 
knowledge these  mysterious  harmonies  and  the 
force  of  the  arguments  derived  from  them.  To 
them  the  things  on  earth  are  copies  of  the  things  in 
heaven.  They  know  that  the  earthly  tabernacle 
is  made  after  the  pattern  of  things  seen  in  the 
Mount,  and  the  question  suggested  by  the  angel 
in  Milton  is  often  forced  upon  their  meditations: 

"  What  if  earth 

Be  but  the  shadow  of  heaven  and  things  therein 
Each  to  each  other  like,  more  than  on  earth  is  thought  ?  " 

Further  on  he  says:  "They  belong  to  each  other, 
the  type  and  the  thing  typified,  by  an  inward 
necessity;  they  were  linked  together  long  before 
by  the  law  of  a  secret  affinity."  And  in  a  note: 


2o  The  Great  Mystery 

"Out  of  a  true  sense  of  this  has  grown  our  use 
of  the  word  likely.  There  is  a  confident  expec- 
tation in  the  minds  of  men  of  the  reappearance 
in  higher  spheres  of  the  same  laws  and  relations 
which  they  have  recognized  in  lower:  and  thus 
that  which  is  like  is  also  likely  or  probable." 

In  one  of  his  Westminster  sermons  he  says: 
"An  ancient  interpreter  of  Scripture  has  not 
scrupled  to  declare  that  there  are  in  the  book  of 
Revelation  (The  Apocalypse)  as  many  mysteries 
as  there  are  words.  True  as  these  words  are, 
taken  with  that  natural  limitation  which  of 
course  they  demand  as  applied  to  that  wonderful 
book,  they  may  be  affirmed  to  be  truer  still  in 
regard  to  the  first  three  chapters  of  Genesis." 
And  again:  "Revelation  which  means  unveiling, 
an  unveiling  of  God,  of  His  character  and  being, 
must  have  mysteries,  yea  many  and  deep  ones." 

In  the  first  of  these  three  chapters,  at  the  26th 
verse  we  find:  "  And  God  said,  Let  us  make  man 
in  our  image,  after  our  likeness,  and  let  them 
have  dominion,  etc."  Here  we  have  first  unity 
"God  said,"  next  plurality  (not  yet  Trinity)  "let 
us  make."  Then  "let  us  make  man"  unity 
again,  "and  let  them  have  dominion  "  plurality 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     21 

again.  Third  "  in  our  image,  after  our  likeness." 
(See  Trench's  Synonyms.)  Image  implies  more 
than  mere  resemblance,  a  copy  after  some  exist- 
ing pattern.  This  form  of  words  is  repeated 
thrice  in  the  space  of  a  few  lines.  Now  wherein 
consists  this  image  of  God  so  emphasized ?  "So 
God  created  man  in  His  own  image,  in  the  image 
of  God  created  He  him,  male  and  female  created 
He  them/'  If  you  were  hearing  that  verse  for 
the  first  time,  without  any  preconceived  notions, 
could  it  fail  to  strike  you  that  God  is  what  can 
only  be  appropriately  imaged  by  man  in  his  dual 
state  ? 

"Man  is  at  once  a  summing-up  of  that  which  was 
before  him,  and  a  point  of  new  departure.  The  say- 
ing, '  Let  Us  make  man  in  Our  image '  (Gen.  i.  26), 
is  in  no  way  opposed  to  the  modern  theory  of  our  de- 
velopment (so  far  as  the  animal  nature  is  concerned) 
out  of  lower  forms  of  life."  "  In  another  verse,  which 
by  some  is  supposed  to  contain  a  different  tradition, 
and  has  been  hastily  judged  incompatible  with  the 
first,  we  read,  'The  Lord  God  formed  man  of  the 
dust  of  the  ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the 
breath  of  life.'  (Gen.  ii.  7.)  Without  disloyalty  to 
these  words,  we  may,  in  the  light  of  modern  discov- 
eries, believe  that  the  dust  was  already  animated  dust 
before  the  breathing  spoken  of,  and  ages  may  have 


22  The  Great  Mystery 

elapsed  between  the  'forming'   and  the  breathing." 
(Mason,  "Faith  of  the  Gospel,"  pp.  81,  82.) 

In  fact,  it  makes  even  more  strongly  for  our  argu- 
ment, if  looking  back  to  the  primal  life  cell,  you  think 
of  it  as  potentially  man,  and  of  God  as  then  and 
there,  making  man  "in  His  own  image,  male  and 
female."1 

Says  Christ  "From  the  beginning  of  the  crea- 
tion God  made  them  male  and  female.  For  this 
cause  shall  a  man  cleave  unto  his  wife  and  they 
shall  be  one  flesh;  so  that  they  are  no  more 
twain  but  one  flesh.  What  therefore  God  hath 
joined  together,  let  not  man  put  asunder."  For 
what  cause  ?  That  they  may  eternally  perpetu- 
ate, even  though  sinful  and  fallen,  the  image  of 
God.2 

But  God  is  three  in  one.  So  has  man  also  a 
Trinity,  and  it  is  significant  that  the  first  definite 
indication  of  the  Trinity  of  both  is  conveyed  in 
one  word,  the  promise  of  the  woman's  seed 
who  should  bruise  the  serpent's  head,  Him  who 
was  the  complement  of  both  God  and  man. 

If  then,  man,  woman,  and  child  together  image 
God,  apart,  it  would  seem,  they  must  image  the 

1  See  companion  study,  page  103,  Section  4. 

2  See  also  Notes  A.  and  D. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     23 

three  Divine  persons.  This  is  as  much  as  to  say 
that  Woman  in  her  unfallen  state  was  the  earthly 
image  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  And  this,  you  will  per- 
ceive, is  the  point  to  which  all  the  foregoing 
tends.  The  great  doctrine  which  I  would  set 
beside  the  Fatherhood  and  the  Sonship  is  the 
Motherhood  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  For  the  Bible  is 
the  revelation  of  God  in  His  relations  to  man; 
and  if  it  reveal  to  us  not  only  a  Father  in  heaven 
and  an  Elder  Brother,  but  also  a  Divine  Mother, 
is  not  this  a  precious  revelation  ? 

But  let  us  see  if  the  foregoing  analogies  be 
borne  out  by  any  others.  First.  In  the  second 
verse  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  we  have  the 
first  mention  of  the  Spirit,  "And  the  Spirit  of 
God  moved  (brooded)  upon  the  face  of  the 
waters."  Scott  finds  it  strange  that  a  word 
should  be  used  which  signifies  the  act  of  the 
mother  bird  brooding  over  her  nest. 

2d.  "She  shall  be  " The  Spirit  of  truth 
called  woman  because  which  proceedeth  from 
she  was  taken  out  of  the  Father."  "TheSpir- 
man.  Therefore  shall  a  it  which  is  of  (or  out 
man  cleave,  etc."  (The  of)  God." 
words  of  God  Himself.) 


24  The  Great  Mystery 

"Therefore,"  wherefore?  That  they  might 
perpetuate  the  image  of  God,  not  only  as  two  in 
one,  but  in  that  peculiarity  of  relationship  which 
is  theologically  termed  "the  procession  of  the 
Holy  Ghost."1 

"But  though  neither  men  nor  angels  be  begotten  of 
the  substance  of  God,  or  by  virtue  of  any  such  natu- 
ral generation  be  called  sons ;  yet  one  person  we  know, 
to  whom  the  divine  essence  is  as  truly  and  really  com- 
municated by  the  Father  as  to  the  Son,  which  is  the 
third  person  in  the  blessed  Trinity,  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Why  then  should  the  Word  by  that  communication  of 
the  divine  essence  become  the  Son,  and  not  the  Holy 
Ghost  by  the  same  ?  ...  To  this  I  answer,  that 
the  Holy  Ghost  receiveth  the  same  essence  from  the 
Father  which  the  Word  receiveth,  and  thereby  becom- 
eth  the  same  God  with  the  Father  and  the  Word :  but 
though  the  essence  be  the  same  which  is  communi- 
cated, yet  there  is  a  difference  in  the  communication, 
the  Word  being  God  by  generation,  the  Holy  Ghost 
by  procession;  and  though  everything  which  is  be- 
gotten proceedeth,  yet  everything  which  proceedeth  is 
not  begotten.  .  .  .  Eve  was  produced  out  of 
Adam,  and  in  the  same  nature  with  him,  and  yet  was 
not  born  of  him,  nor  was  she  truly  the  daughter  of 
Adam ;  whereas  Seth  proceeding  from  the  same  per- 
son in  the  similitude  of  the  same  nature,  was  truly  and 
1  See  also  note  C. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     25 

properly  the  son  of  Adam.  And  this  difference  was 
not  in  the  nature  produced,  but  in  the  manner  of  pro- 
duction. .  .  .  The  Holy  Ghost  proceedeth  from 
the  Father  in  the  same  nature  with  Him,  the  Word 
proceedeth  from  the  same  person  in  the  same  simili- 
tude of  nature  also ;  but  the  Word  proceeding  is  the 
Son,  the  Holy  Ghost  is  not,  because  the  first  proces- 
sion is  by  way  of  generation,  the  other  is  not." 
(Pearson  on  the  Creed.  On  "His  Only  Son,"  par. 
45.)  But  this  illustration  is  not  original  with  Pear- 
son. Methodius  of  Tyre  (end  of  third  century)  says 
"the  Spirit  .  .  .  proceeds,  like  Eve  from  the 
side  of  Adam  .  .  .  yet  is  consubstantial  with  the 
Father."  (Smith  and  Wace,  Dictionary  of  Christian 
Biography,  etc.) 

In  the  "Foundations  of  the  Creed"  by  Bishop 
Goodwin,  in  the  chapter  on  the  Holy  Ghost,  I  find 
the  following :  "  One  fears  to  express  one's  thoughts 
upon  so  solemn  and  difficult  a  subject,  lest  (as  has  not 
unfrequently  happened)  that  which  begins  with  ap- 
parently innocent  speculation  should  develop  into  some 
ancient  and  condemned  heresy.  Few  thoughts  on  old 
subjects  in  this  period  of  the  world's  history  are  both 
new  and  true.  Yet  I  have  sometimes  thought  it  pos- 
sible that  the  being  of  the  Holy  Ghost  might  be  as 
necessary  a  consequence  of  the  being  of  the  Father 
and  that  of  the  Son,  as  the  existence  of  the  third  side 
of  a  triangle  is  the  consequence  of  the  other  two,  or 
the  existence  of  a  third  resultant  force  is  the  conse- 


26  The  Great  Mystery 

quence  of  the  cooperation  of  two  forces  on  the  same 
point.  The  procession  of  the  third  person  of  the 
Holy  Trinity  may  be  a  divinely  necessary  procession : 
without  confounding  the  persons  or  dividing  the  sub- 
stance, the  procession  may  perhaps  be  regarded  as  in- 
volved in  the  complete  conception  of  the  being  of 
God  :  in  fact,  if  we  could  so  far  enter  into  the  truth 
of  that  being,  as  to  grasp  the  mystery  of  Father  and 
Son,  we  should  probably  find  that  it  was  impossible 
not  to  include  in  the  mystery  the  being  of  the  Holy 
Ghost." 

If  you  say  you  do  not  understand  this  story  (of  the 
creation  of  Eve)  literally,  I  answer,  neither  do  I  so 
understand  it.  I  believe  it  tells  us  "true  historic 
facts,  though  the  facts  are  presented  to  us  partly  under 
an  allegorical  shape.  Under  any  other  shape,  we  could 
not  have  received  or  understood  them."  (Mason.) 
In  other  words,  I  believe  that  there  is  a  true  sense  in 
which,  in  the  beginning  woman  proceeded  from  man, 
and  what  that  sense  is,  natural  science  will  perhaps  at 
some  not  far-off  day,  reveal  to  us. 

3d.  In  that  wonderful  third  of  John  we  read 
"  that  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh,  and  that 
which  is  born  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit."  (And  see 
the  whole  context.)  Trench  himself  declares  that 
"the  earthly  birth  was  preordained  to  typify  the 
mystery  of  the  heavenly."  Why  not  go  a  step 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     27 

further  and  say  that  the  earthly  mother  was  pre- 
ordained to  typify  the  Heavenly  Mother?  Why 
should  that  which  has  been  universally  owned  in 
every  age  as  the  holiest,  highest,  purest,  most 
unselfish  of  earthly  affections  and  relations,  alone 
have  nothing  in  common  with  heaven  ? 

Trench  does  say,  although  in  another  con- 
nection, that  men  have  at  different  times  regarded 
the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  light  of  a  Mother,  and  cites 
one  of  the  fathers.  In  this  connection  I  may 
quote  the  traditional  saying  of  Christ,  "  In  the 
gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews  the  Saviour 
Himself  says,  'Just  now  My  Mother,  the  Holy 
Spirit  took  Me  by  one  of  My  hairs  and  bore  Me, 
away  to  the  great  mountain  Thabor.' '  West- 
cott  says,  in  a  note  to  his  introduction  to  the 
Study  of  the  Gospels,  "This  very  singular  say- 
ing, which  is  evidently  of  Hebrew  origin,  from 
the  gender  of  Spirit  (Ruach)  is  quoted  several 
times."  He  then  cites  Origen  and  others. 

St.  Jerome  in  his  commentary  on  Isaiah  has  the  fol- 
lowing :  "According  to  their  gospel  which  is  written 
in  Hebrew,  and  read  by  the  Nazarenes,  the  whole 
fountain  of  the  Holy  Spirit  descended  upon  Him. 
.  .  .  Besides  in  that  gospel  just  mentioned  we  find 


28  The  Great  Mystery 

these  things  written :  '  It  came  to  pass,  when  the  Lord 
ascended  from  the  water,  the  whole  fountain  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  descended  and  rested  upon  Him,  and  said 
to  Him :  My  Son,  in  all  the  Prophets,  I  was  waiting 
for  Thy  coming,  and  that  I  might  rest  on  Thee,  for 
Thou  art  My  rest,  Thou  art  My  First-begotten,  who 
shalt  reign  forever.1  " 

In  his  commentary  on  Micah  vii.  6,  we  find : 
"Whoever  reads  the  Book  of  Canticles,  and  under- 
stands by  the  Spouse  of  the  Soul,  the  Word  of  God, 
and  believes  the  gospel  called  According  to  the  He- 
brews, which  we  lately  translated,  in  which  the  Saviour 
is  introduced  as  saying :  '  Just  now,  My  Mother  the 
Holy  Spirit  took  Me  by  one  of  My  hairs,'  will  not 
hesitate  to  say  that  the  Word  of  God  was  born  of  the 
Spirit,  and  that  the  Soul  which  is  the  Spouse  of  the 
Word,  has  for  the  mother  of  its  Spouse  the  Holy  Spirit, 
who  in  the  Hebrew  language  is  spoken  of  in  the  femi- 
nine gender." 

St.  Jerome,  whatever  he  may  have  thought  of  the 
Nazarenes,  speaks  quite  respectfully  of  the  Gospel  of 
the  Hebrews ;  but  Pearson  alludes  very  disrespectfully 
to  the  folly  of  the  "Nazarseans "  in  "making  the 
Spirit  mother  of  Christ"  "upon  the  authority  of  a 
pretended,  but  no,  Scripture."  (Pearson,  Art.  3, 
Chap.  2,  Note  to  par.  7.)  It  may  be  considered  as 
proved  that  the  Gospel  to  the  Hebrews  is  not  the  orig- 
inal of  St.  Matthew.  Dr.  Salmon,  however,  says  "it 
does  not  follow  that  it  stands  on  no  higher  level  than 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     29 

the  Apocryphal  Gospels."  It  will  be  observed  that  I 
have  not  based  any  argument  on  any  of  these  passages, 
but  it  would  be  strange,  in  such  a  paper,  not  to  refer 
to  them.  It  is  manifest  that  the  association  of  this 
doctrine  of  the  Motherhood  with  the  gross  fables  of 
the  Gnostic  heresy  must  have  made  the  thought  of  it 
repugnant  to  the  early  fathers;  but  notwithstanding 
this,  I  cannot  find  anything  set  down  as  essential  to 
belief  which  in  any  way  conflicts  with  it.1 

4th.     The  peculiar  characteristics  of  the  Spirit. 

"The  Comforter."  Not  to  cite  any  lesser  au- 
thority, we  have  the  word  of  God  Himself  for  it, 
that  the  office  of  comforter  is  the  mother's  office. 
"  Thus  saith  the  Lord :  As  one  whom  his  mother 
comforteth,  so  will  I  comfort  you."  (Isaiah 
Ixvi.  18.) 

St.  James  says  "The  Wisdom  that  is  from 
above  "  that  is  the  Divine  Wisdom  which  Trench 
identifies  with  the  Holy  Spirit,2  "is  first  pure, 
then  peaceable,  gentle,  and  easy  to  be  entreated, 
full  of  mercy  and  good  fruits."  Then  patient, 
long  suffering,  striving,  being  grieved.  All  that 
we  know  of  the  Spirit  is  gentleness,  tenderness, 

1  See  also  note  E. 

8  As  does  also  the   author   of  the   Book   of  Wisdom.     See 
Note  L. 


30  The  Great  Mystery 

patience,  entreaty,  but  above  all,  holiness,  pur- 
ity, "the  sanctifier."  On  this  see  (F.  W.)  Robert- 
son. Of  a  similar  list  of  graces  he  says:  "These 
are  graces  essentially  feminine.  How  were  men 
to  find  expression  for  that  idea  which  was  work- 
ing in  them  vague  and  beautiful,  but  wanting 
substance,  the  idea  of  the  Divineness  of  what  is 
pure  above  what  is  strong.  Would  you  have 
them  say  simply,  we  had  forgotten  these  things. 
Now  they  are  revealed  to  us.  Now  we  know 
that  love  and  purity  are  as  divine  as  power  and 
reason?  My  brethren,  it  is  not  so  that  men 
worship,  it  is  only  so  men  think.  They  think 
about  qualities,  they  worship  persons.  Worship 
must  have  a  form:  adoration  finds  a  person;  and 
if  it  cannot  find  one  it  will  imagine  one.  Gentle- 
ness and  purity  are  words  for  a  philosopher,  but 
a  man  whose  heart  wants  something  to  adore 
will  find  for  himself  a  gentle  one,  a  pure  one. 
You  cannot  adore,  except  a  person."  And  from 
this,  he  deduces  the  origin  of  the  worship  of  the 
Virgin  Mary.  He  says  the  distinctive  glory  of 
Womanhood  was  found  to  consist  in  purity. 
(The  Wisdom  that  is  of  God  is  "  first  pure.") 
Again  he  says,  after  a  variety  of  premises,  "  It 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     31 

follows  that  God  has  yet  reserved  for  Woman- 
hood a  larger  and  more  glorious  field  for  her 
peculiar  qualities  and  gifts,  and  that  the  truth  con- 
tained in  the  Virgin  Motherhood  is  unexhausted 
still."  And  he  quotes  the  infidel  French  philos- 
opher Comte  as  saying  that  "Woman  worship 
is  what  the  age  wants.  We  want  the  glory  of 
Woman  to  worship."  Robertson  says  again, 
"There  is  one  glory  of  Manhood  and  another 
glory  of  Womanhood."  "  Humanity  has  its  two 
sides.  Man  and  Woman,  not  Man  alone,  make 
up  Humanity."  (Now  it  was  Man  in  the  sense 
of  Humanity  that  was  made  in  God's  image.) 
But  Robertson  thinks  that  the  only  safeguard 
against  the  idolatrous  error  of  Virgin  worship  is 
a  full  recognition  of  the  perfect  Humanity  of 
Christ.  And  Mrs.  Jameson,  in  her  book  on  the 
Madonna,  says  the  same  in  substance,  so  that 
Robertson  avers  she  got  it  from  him.  "In 
Christ,"  says  Robertson,  "both  were  glorified, 
Strength  and  Grace,  Wisdom  and  Love,  Courage 
and  Purity,  Divine  Manliness  and  Divine  Woman- 
liness." And  all  this  is  true,  but  not  I  think,  the 
whole  truth,  nor  the  truth  that  we  want.  No 
doubt  Christ  combined  what  we  know  of  the 


32  The  Great  Mystery 

two  Divine  Persons,  and  as  the  Son  of  God,  (not 
alone  of  the  Father)  so  He  should.  But  the 
human  craving  which  found  relief  in  the  worship 
of  the  Virgin,  was  not  so  much,  I  think,  for  the 
deification  of  certain  feminine  virtues,  as  for  a 
Divine  Mother.  Man  that  is  born  of  Woman, 
and  has  drawn  his  first  nourishment  from  her 
breast,  looks  up  to  heaven  with  an  unspeakable 
longing  to  find  there  the  same  patient,  inexhausti- 
ble, untiring  tenderness,  the  mother-love,  which 
if  it  do  not  image  the  Spirit's  Love,  is  that  anoma- 
lous thing,  a  copy  without  an  original. 

Kingsley  in  his  book  called  "Yeast"  which 
embodies  so  well  the  restless  longing  and  ex- 
pectancy that  characterize  the  present  age,  ex- 
presses most  vividly  by  the  mouth  of  one  of  his 
characters  this  longing  for  a  Divine  Mother  Love 
that  drives  him  into  the  Romish  church.  "I  am 
weak,  would  you  have  me  say  that  I  am  strong  ? 
Would  you  have  me  try  to  be  a  Prometheus, 
while  1  am  longing  to  be  once  more  an  infant  on 
a  mother's  breast  ?  Let  me  alone.  I  am  a  weary 
child  who  knows  nothing,  can  do  nothing  except 
lose  its  way  in  arguings  and  reasonings,  and 
'find  no  end  in  wandering  mazes  lost.'  Will 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     33 

you  reproach  me,  because  when  I  see  a  soft 
cradle  lying  open  for  me,  with  a  Virgin  Mother's 
face  smiling  down  all  woman's  love  upon  me,  I 
long  to  crawl  into  it  and  sleep  awhile.  I  want 
loving,  indulgent  sympathy,"  and  soon. 

5th.  To  quote  from  Trench  again:  "It  will 
be  my  purpose  to  inquire  whether  we  may  not 
contemplate  the  relations  of  the  Absolute  Truth 
to  the  anterior  religions  of  the  world,  in  an 
aspect  in  which,  instead  of  being  secretly  em- 
barrassed by  them,  and  hardly  knowing  how  to 
deal  with  or  to  range  them,  we  shall  joyfully  ac- 
cept these  presentiments  of  the  truth  as  enhanc- 
ing the  greatness  and  glory  of  the  truth  itself, 
and  as  being,  so  far  as  they  are  allowed  any 
weight,  confirmations  of  it."  Not  to  quote  any 
further,  the  whole  argument  of  his  lectures  on 
the  Unconscious  Prophecies  of  Heathendom  is 
based  on  this  idea.  For  as  he  says  "it  is  not  the 
presence  of  these  resemblances  which  need  per- 
plex us,  but  rather  their  absence  which  would 
have  been  justly  surprising,  which  would  have 
been  indeed  most  difficult  to  account  for." 

Mrs.  Jameson  says  of  the  worship  of  the 
Madonna:  "  Everywhere  it  seems  to  have  found 


34  The  Great  Mystery 

in  the  human  heart  some  deep  sympathy,  deeper 
far  than  mere  theological  doctrine  could  reach, 
ready  to  accept  it:  and  in  every  land  the  ground 
prepared  for  it  in  some  already  dominant  idea  of 
a  mother  goddess,  chaste,  beautiful  and  benign. 
As  in  the  oldest  Hebrew  rites  and  Pagan  supersti- 
tions men  traced  the  promise  of  a  coming  Mes- 
siah, as  the  deliverers  and  kings  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  even  the  demigods  of  heathendom  (see 
Trench)  became  the  accepted  types  of  the  person 
of  Christ,  so  the  Eve  of  the  Mosaic  History,  (the 
Mother  of  all  living),  the  Astarte  of  the  Assyrians, 
'The  mooned  Ashtaroth,  Heaven's  Queen  and 
Mother  both,'  the  Isis  nursing  Horus  of  the 
Egyptians,  the  Demeter  and  the  Aphrodite  of  the 
Greeks,  the  Scythian  Freya,  have  all  been  con- 
sidered as  types  of  a  Divine  Maternity,  fore- 
shadowing the  Virgin  Mother  of  Christ."  On 
the  three  occasions  when  we  hear  Christ  speak 
to,  or  of  the  Virgin,1  He  denies  her  the  name  of 
mother.  ("Woman,  what  have  I  to  do  with 
thee?"  "Woman,  behold  thy  son!  "  "Who  is 

1  There  was  another  time,  when  He  said,  "  Wist  ye  not  that 
I  must  be  about  My  Father's  business  ?  "  (or  "  in  My  Father's 
House  ?  ") 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     3$ 

my  mother  ?  ")  "  The  Madonna  when  she  assumed 
to  herself  the  characteristics  of  the  great  Diana  of 
the  Ephesians,  at  once  the  type  of  fertility  and 
the  goddess  of  chastity,  became  as  the  imper- 
sonation of  motherhood,  all  beauty  and  gracious- 
ness,  and  at  the  same  time,  in  virtue  of  her  per- 
petual virginity,  etc." 

On  the  statue  of  Isis  (one  of  the  received  "types 
of  the  Divine  Maternity")  were  inscribed  the 
strange  words:  "I  am  all  that  has  been  and  all 
that  shall  be,  and  none  among  mortals  has  hith- 
erto taken  off  my  veil." 

(Amun  Re  the  Supreme  Deity  of  the  Egyptians, 
was  at  once  his  own  father  and  mother.') 

1  (From  Arius  the  Libyan,  page  84.)  "  In  the  original  faith 
of  all  the  primitive  nations,  the  divine  being  is  Father-mother, 
which  is  one  dual  God,  and  a  son.  If  therefore,  the  Christian 
religion  presents  the  idea  of  a  spiritual  dualism  made  a  trilogy  by 
the  generation  of  a  son,  it  maintains  the  very  idea  of  the  Deity, 
which  is  the  core  of  all  the  primitive  religions — Egyptian,  Indian, 
Chinese,  and,  I  think,  Jewish  also."  But  this  author's  idea  of 
God  is  of  "an  almighty  hermaphrodite  spirit."  "The  divine 
being  is  spiritually  hermaphrodite."  This  is  not  tenable  for 
two  reasons :  1st,  a  hermaphrodite  in  Nature  is  either  a  de- 
generate, or  one  of  a  low  order  of  beings.  2d,  Such  an  idea  is 
the  "confounding  of  persons"  against  which  the  Church  pro- 
tests. The  idea  of  God  which  I  wish  to  convey  no  more 
"  confounds  the  persons  "  than  it  "  divides  the  substance." 


36  The  Great  Mystery 

6th.  May  not  the  woman  clothed  with  the 
sun  (Rev.  xii.  i)  typify  the  Holy  Spirit? 

In  his  notes  on  the  Parable  of  the  Leaven, 
Trench  says:  "Is  it  only  a  part  of  the  suitable 
machinery  of  the  parable  that  it  was  a  'woman  ' 
who  took  the  leaven,  etc.  ?  Or  may  we  look  for 
something  more  in  it  than  this?  A  comparison 
with  Luke  xv.  8,  the  woman  who  had  lost  and 
found  her  piece  of  money,  may  suggest  that  the 
Divine  Wisdom,  the  Holy  Spirit  which  is  the 
sanctifying  power  in  humanity,  may  be  meant. 
But  if  it  be  asked  '  why  as  a  woman  ? '  to  this 
it  may  be  replied  that  the  organ  of  the  Spirit's 
working  is  the  Church  which  evidently  would  be 
most  fitly  represented  under  this  image."  See 
now  in  his  notes  on  the  parable  above  referred  to, 
of  the  lost  piece  of  money:  "The  woman  in 
this  parable  may  perhaps  be  the  Church;  or  if  we 
say  that  by  her  is  signified  the  Divine  Wisdom 
which  so  often  in  Proverbs  is  described  as  seek- 
ing the  salvation  of  men,  and  is  here  as  elsewhere 
set  forth  as  a  person  (Luke  xi.  49)  and  not  as  an 
attribute,  this  will  be  no  different  view,  for  rather 
these  two  explanations  flow  into  one,  when  we 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     37 

keep  in  mind  how  the  Church  is  the  organ  in  and 
through  which  the  Holy  Spirit  seeks  for  the  lost. 
That  the  Church  should  be  personified  as  a  woman 
is  only  natural ; 1  nor  has  the  thought  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  as  a  mother  been  at  different  times  far 
from  men's  minds." 

But  if  this  be  the  truth  of  God,  why  so  long 
hidden  or  taught  so  indirectly  ?  And  why  now 
revealed  ? 2 

i st.  Hidden  for  the  degradation  and  punish- 
ment of  woman,  as  St.  Paul  almost  says  in 
words  in  that  strange  passage  where  he  so  in- 
sists on  the  veil  or  covering  for  the  woman's 
head.  As  she  would  be  "like  the  gods"  so 
was  her  typical  likeness  hidden  from  all,  even 
from  herself,  and  so  was  she  doubly  "deceived, 
being  in  the  transgression." 

What  has  been  said  in  the  note  on  page  26  of  the 
partly  allegorical  character  of  the  story  of  Eve's  pro- 
cession from  Adam  applies  as  well  (was  originally  in- 
tended by  Doctor  Mason  to  apply)  to  the  story  of  the 
Fall.  No  one  believes  in  a  literal  serpent,  and  few,  in 
a  literal  fruit.  All  however  is  full  of  Divine  sugges- 
tion. What  was  the  nature  of  the  sin  which  separated 

1  See  Note  O. 

3  See  Notes  to  Sixth  Article  of  the  Summary. 


8'9  6  8  6 


38  The  Great  Mystery 

Man  from  God  ?  May  it  not  have  been  in  some  way, 
a  profanation  of  the  Divine  ideal,  in  which  Woman 
was  the  original  transgressor  ?  And  it  is  not  necessary 
to  assume  that  the  punishment  was  arbitrary.  God  is 
the  God  of  Nature  and  of  Law,  as  well  as  of  Providence. 
Woman's  degradation  through  her  own  sin  may  have 
brought  about  naturally  her  own  punishment,  which 
would  not  be  the  less  God's  curse,  because  Nature's.1 

2d.  There  is  another  reason  which  I  will 
develop  in  the  sixth  article  of  the  summing  up. 

^d.  We  may  say  that  when  this  truth  began 
to  dawn  on  men's  minds,  it  was  overshadowed 
and  obscured  by  the  rising  worship  of  the  Virgin. 
Then  were  given  to  the  star-crowned  queen 
two  wings  of  a  great  eagle,  that  she  might  fly 
into  the  wilderness  to  the  place  prepared  of  God 
for  her.  And  there  she  has  remained  hidden, 
("but  for  a  time"). 

The  names  and  offices  of  the  Holy  Spirit  were 
given  to  the  Virgin.  Especially  the  intercessory 
office,  the  central  idea  of  Virgin  worship. 

"  Not  only  him  who  asks 
Thy  bounty  succors,  but  doth  freely  oft 
Forerun  the  asking." 

—  Cory's  Dante.     Hymn  to  the  Virgin. 

1  (See  companion  study,  Section  8,  on  "  The  Seventh  Com- 
mandment of  Nature.")  See  also  Note  M. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     39 

"  Sometimes  Lady,  ere  men  pray  to  thee 
Thou  goest  before  in  thy  benignity, 
The  light  to  us  vouchsafing  of  thy  prayers 
To  be  our  guide." 

—  Wordsworth's  Chaucer. 

"  Likewise  the  Spirit  also  helpeth  our  infirmi- 
ties, for  we  know  not  what  we  should  pray  for 
as  we  ought,  but  the  Spirit  itself  maketh  inter- 
cession for  us."  (Romans  viii.  26.) 

TITLES  OF  THE  VIRGIN. 
Our  Lady  of  Comfort.     (The  Comforter.) 
Our  Lady  of  Peace.          (The  very  God  of  Peace 

sanctify  you.) 

Our  Lady  of  Wisdom.     (The  Divine  Wisdom.) 
Mater  Sapientise.  (Wisdom  of  God.) 

Our  Lady  of  Grace.          (Spirit  of  Grace.) 
Mother  of  God.  (The  Scripture  calls  her 

"mother  of  Jesus,"  and  Elizabeth  says,  "the 
mother  of  my  Lord"  but  not  mother  of  God,  and 
Christ  Himself  as  I  said  before,  on  the  only 
three  occasions  when  we  hear  Him  address  her 
by  name,  does  not  give  her  the  name  of  mother 
at  all.  But  when  He  promises  to  send  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  His  disciples,  He  says,  "  I  will  not  leave 
you  orphans.") 


4O  The  Great  Mystery 

The  star-crowned  queen  has  always  been  con- 
sidered by  the  Romanists  a  type  of  the  Virgin,1 
and  in  innumerable  pictures  she  is  represented  in 
accordance  with  this  idea. 

In  many  others  she  is  represented  with  the 
Book  of  Wisdom  in  her  hands  open  as  Mrs. 
Jameson  tells  us,  at  the  seventh  chapter,  which 
contains  the  magnificent  description  of  the  Wis- 
dom of  God,  supposed  to  refer  prophetically  to 

1 "  Midmost,  all  glorious,  shining  serene, 

Crowned  with  the  star  wreath,  I  see  Heaven's  Queen  ! 

"  Over  earth  to  thee  is  given 

Empire !     Let  me  in  the  free 
Widespread  tent  of  the  blue  heaven 
See  thy  mystery. 

"  Aid  in  man's  heart  what  thou  of  good, 

Of  tender  thought  and  earnest, 
Of  holy  love  in  his  best  mood 
Up-breathed  to  thee,  discernest ! 

"Virgin  !  from  all  soil  of  sin 

Virgin  pure  !  to  thee  we  bow  ; 
Saintly  mother !     Chosen  queen ! 
One  with  the  godlike  Thou  ! 

"  To  the  heavenly  heights  as  thou  floatest  away 
Of  the  kingdoms  eternal,  to  thee  do  we  pray  — 
Thou  that  hast  no  peer ! 

Thou  that  art  rich  in  grace  !  Oh  !  mercifully  hear  ! " 
— Goethe's  Faust,  Second  Part. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     41 

the  Virgin  Mary.  Now  the  author  uses  the 
names  of  Wisdom  and  the  Holy  Spirit  inter- 
changeably. "The  things  that  are  in  heaven, 
who  hath  known  and  Thy  counsel  who  hath 
searched  out,  except  Thou  give  wisdom  and 
send  Thy  Holy  Spirit  from  above."1 

SUMMARY  OF  THE  FOREGOING  ARGUMENTS. 

i  st.  We  have  first  the  Trinity  of  the  Godhead. 

God  created  the  Heavens  and  the  Earth.  (Fa- 
ther.) 

The  Spirit  brooded  on  the  face  of  the  waters. 
(Spirit.) 

And  God  said,  By  Him  (the  Word)  all  things 
were  made.  (Son.) 

Next  the  trinity  of  man  made  in  the  image  of 
God. 

In  the  image  of  God  created  He  him.     (Man.) 

Male  and  female  created  He  them.2    (Woman.) 

1  See  Note  G. 

2  On  page  87  of  "  Arius  the   Libyan  "  the  same  idea  is  de- 
veloped from  the  same  passage  of  Scripture.     But  this  idea, 
all  through  the  book  is  associated  with  the  heresies  of  Arius, 
for  which  association  there  is  no  foundation  in  history.     The 
real  Arius  taught  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  a  creature.     He  also 
taught  that  the  Son  was  neither  coeternal  nor  consubstantial 
with  the  Father. 


42  The  Great  Mystery 

And  God  blessed  them  and  said,  Be  fruitful. 
(Child.) 

"I  will  say,  boldly,  my  friends,  that  if  one  could 
find  out  the  full  meaning  of  those  two  words,  mother 
and  child,  one  would  be  the  wisest  philosopher  on 
earth,  and  see  deeper  than  all  who  have  ever  yet  lived, 
into  the  secrets  of  this  world  of  time  which  we  can 
see,  and  of  the  eternal  world,  which  no  man  can  see, 
save  with  the  eyes  of  his  reasonable  soul.  And  yet  it 
is  the  most  common,  everyday  sight.  That  only  shows 
once  more  what  I  so  often  try  to  show  you,  that  the 
most  common,  everyday  things  are  the  most  wonder- 
ful. It  shows  us  how  that  we  are  to  despise  nothing 
which  God  has  made ;  above  all,  to  despise  nothing 
which  belongs  to  human  nature,  which  is  the  likeness 
and  image  of  God.  (Charles  Kingsley,  Sermon  for 
Christmas  Day,  from  Good  News  of  God.) 

2d.  But  we  have  more  than  this:  more  than  a 
trinity  of  man  made  in  the  image  of  God.  We 
have  the  Father  and  the  Son;  and  these  terms,  if 
we  are  orthodox,  we  must  accept  not  as  mere 
accommodations,  for  that,  says  Trench,  is  Arian- 

After  this  volume  was  in  the  publisher's  hands,  my  at- 
tention was  called  to  Edwin  Markham's  poem  just  out, 
"  Song  to  the  Divine  Mother,"  with  the  footnote  referring 
to  Gen.  i.  26,  27,  for  the  confirmation  of  his  assertion  about 
the  nature  of  God. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     43 

ism,  "  but  we  hold  that  the  Son  is  truly  Son,  be- 
gotten of  the  Father."1 

"This  then  is  the  known  confession  of  all  men,  that 
a  son  is  nothing  but  another  produced  by  his  father  in 
the  same  nature  with  him.  But  God  the  Father  hath 
communicated  to  the  Word  the  same  divine  essence 
by  which  He  is  God ;  and  consequently  He  is  of  the 
same  nature  with  Him,  and  therefore  the  perfect  image 
and  similitude  of  Him  and  therefore  His  proper  Son. 
In  human  generations  we  may  conceive  two  kinds  of 
similitude :  one  in  respect  of  the  internal  nature,  the 
other  in  reference  to  the  external  form  or  figure.  The 
former  similitude  is  essential  and  necessary ;  it  being 
impossible  a  man  should  beget  a  son,  and  that  son, 
not  by  nature  a  man."  "  The  similitude  then  in  which 
the  propriety  of  generation  is  preserved  is  that  which 
consisteth  in  the  identity  of  nature :  and  this  commu- 
nication of  the  divine  essence  by  the  Father  to  the 
Word  is  evidently  a  sufficient  foundation  of  such  a 
similitude."  "The  essence  which  God  always  had 
without  beginning,  without  beginning  He  did  commu- 

1  If  such  a  doctrine  as  the  Fatherhood  of  God  has  been  lost 
to  the  Church  for  centuries,  and  only  recently  restored,  who  can 
wonder  that  the  Motherhood  should  have  remained  so  long  an 
undiscovered  mystery  ?  Of  the  Fatherhood,  Dr.  John  Watson 
says  "  it  is  inexcusable  that  the  central  theme  of  Jesus'  teaching 
should  have  been  ignored  or  minimized.  This  silence,  from  the 
date  of  the  Greek  Fathers  to  the  arrival  of  the  Broad  Church- 
man, has  been  more  than  an  omission ;  it  has  been  a  heresy." 


44  The  Great  Mystery 

nicate,  being  always  Father  as  always  God."  (Pear- 
son on  the  Creed.  See  the  paragraphs  on  "  His  Only 
Son,"  from  40  to  45.) 

Does  not  this  create  the  strongest  presumption 
from  analogy?  And  are  we  not  justified  by 
Scripture  in  arguing  from  analogy  here?  For 
what  is  St.  Paul's  reproach  to  the  Gentiles 
who  were  without  the  written  law?  "The 
wrath  of  God  is  revealed  against  men  who 
hold  the  truth  in  unrighteousness.  Because 
that  which  may  be  known  of  God  is  mani- 
fested in  them,  for  God  hath  showed  it  unto 
them,  for  the  invisible  things  of  Him  from 
the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being 
understood  by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  His 
eternal  Power  and  Godhead."  l 

3d.  This  doctrine  contradicts  so  far  as  1  know, 
nothing  in  Scripture,  but  much  therein  makes  it 
probable  by  implication,  and  it  explains  and  sim- 
plifies many  things.1 

4th.  We  find  that  the  characteristics,  offices, 
etc.,  of  the  Third  Person  of  the  Trinity  are  such 
as  we  are  accustomed  to  consider  distinctively 
feminine. 

'  See  note  H.  »  See  notes  F,  J,  K  and  N. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     45 

5th.  A  sufficient  and  Scriptural  reason  may  be 
assigned  why  this  doctrine  should  have  remained 
an  unrevealed  mystery. 

6th.     (This  article  is  omitted.) 

In  the  article  omitted,  the  progressive  character  of 
Revelation,  especially  with  reference  to  the  Being  of 
God,  was  suggested.  The  view  taken  was  similar  to 
that  developed  by  St.  Gregory  Nazianzen  in  one  of 
his  discourses,  which  I  had  not  then  seen,  and  I  now 
prefer  to  put  the  idea  in  his  words  rather  than  my  own. 
I  will  premise  by  recalling  the  fact  that  even  such 
fundamental  doctrines  as  the  Trinity,  and  the  Person- 
ality and  Deity  of  the  Holy  Ghost  are  not  taught  dog- 
matically in  Holy  Scripture,  but  had  to  be  gathered 
by  careful  study  and  comparison  of  text  with  text; 
and  were  only  gradually  accepted  by  the  Church,  in 
their  present  form.  "St.  Gregory  Nazianzen  (fourth 
century)  preached  the  Deity  of  the  Spirit.  He  asks, 
'  But,  why  had  the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit's  Godhead 
been  so  little  dwelt  upon  in  earlier  times?'  He  an- 
swers that  it  came  last  in  the  order  of  Divine  Revela- 
tion. The  Old  Testament  revealed  the  Father ;  in  the 
New,  the  Son  was  manifested ;  each  truth  had  to  be 
firmly  established  in  the  minds  of  men  before  the  next 
could  follow.  The  Deity  of  the  Holy  Ghost  was  one 
of  those  truths  which  the  Church  could  not  bear  at 
first,  but  which  she  is  now  learning  from  the  Divine 
Comforter  Himself"  (Smith  and  Wace.) 


46  The  Great  Mystery 

7th.  The  presumption  from  the  primitive 
world  religions,  and  the  worship  of  the  Virgin, 
as  implying  the  craving  in  the  human  heart  for  a 
Divine  motherhood. 

8th.  The  argument  from  the  procession  of 
the  Holy  Ghost. 

To  the  doctrines  of  the  Deity  and  Personality  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  the  Church  added  that  of  the  Procession 
from  the  Father.  So  far,  the  teaching  of  the  Church 
about  the  Divine  Spirit  had  developed  rationally  and 
naturally  from  the  text  of  Holy  Scripture.  Then, 
there  was  a  pause.  It  was  felt  that  the  next  step  was 
to  be  an  important  one.  The  Church  was  afraid  of 
making  a  mistake.  Of  St.  Hilary  of  Poitiers  it  is  said, 
"His  treatment  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
shows  how  reluctantly  Catholic  writers  of  this  period 
were  forced  into  a  minute  examination  of  the  mystery 
of  the  Spirit's  Being."  (Smith  and  Wace.) 

Through  what  strange  bias  or  warping  the  develop- 
ment of  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  was  turned 
aside  from  its  natural  course  into  so  extraordinary  a 
deviation  as  that  of  the  Procession  from  the  Son,  I  am 
not  sufficiently  learned  in  the  tendencies  of  the  time 
to  conjecture. 

The  Filioque,  however,  forms  no  part  of  the 
Creed  of  the  Undivided  Church,  and  was  not 
adopted  by  any  Ecumenical  Council.  I  quote 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     47 

from  Bishop  Leonard's  Church  Club  Lecture  (1893) 
on  the  First  Council  of  Constantinople.  After  re- 
hearsing the  Creed  as  revised  by  that  Council,  he 
adds,  "  You  will  notice  that  this  Creed  announces  be- 
lief in  the  fact  that  '  the  Holy  Ghost  proceedeth  from 
the  Father,'  and  no  mention  is  made  'of  the  Son.' 
This  last  expression  which  has  crept  into  the  Nicene 
Creed  as  it  appears  in  our  offices,  is  the  famous  '  Fili- 
oque. '  It  was  first  added  to  the  Symbol,  at  a  Spanish 
Provincial  Council  held  at  Toledo,  A.  D.  589.  It  has 
been  the  source  of  much  dissension  and  difference,  and 
was  a  principal  cause  for  the  sad  separation  of  the 
Eastern  and  Western  Churches.  To-day  it  affects  the 
relations  of  the  Anglican  Communion  with  the  great 
Orthodox  Eastern  Church  of  Russia,  Greece,  and  the 
Orient,  and  would  seem,  to  some,  to  mar  the  perfect- 
ness  of  our  otherwise  beautiful  Confession  of  Faith." 
To  the  above,  I  will  only  add  that  the  argument  of 
the  Western  Church,  (that,  if  the  Spirit  proceeds  from 
the  essence  of  the  Father,  it  must  also  proceed  from 
the  essence  of  the  Son,  because  both  have  the  same 
essence)  proves  just  as  well  that,  as  the  Son  proceeds 
(by  generation)  from  the  essence  of  the  Father,  (Pear- 
son) He  must  also  proceed  from  the  essence  of  the 
Spirit,  since  both  have  the  same  essence.  Of  course, 
the  distinction  between  the  Eternal,  metaphysical 
procession  and  the  temporal,  double  mission  must  be 
kept  in  mind.  There  is  surely  nothing  strange  in  the 
thought  that  the  Divine  Son,  having  purchased  by  His 


48  The  Great  Mystery 

sacrifice  the  supreme  gift  for  His  infant  Church,  should 
send  the  Divine  Mother  on  such  errands  of  Heavenly 
Charity  as  are  most  fit  for  mothers  to  do,  or  that  the 
Divine  Mother  should  take  of  the  things  of  Her  Son, 
and  show  them  to  those  for  whom  He  died,  or  bring 
to  their  remembrance  the  words  that  He  had  said.  I 
appeal  to  all  mothers. 

9th.  The  fact  that  the  image  of  God  is  thus 
mirrored  not  only  in  man,  but  in  miniature, 
through  all  living  forms  of  creation,  in  the  mar- 
riages of  the  flowers,  in  the  invisible  nuptials  of 
the  cryptogamia.  Thus  in  the  union  of  Two 
resides  the  mystery  of  creation,  Two  acting 
through  One,  (eternal  generation  of  the  Son,) 
the  mediator  not  only  between  God  and  man, 
but  between  God  and  all  things. 

(The  child,  body  and  soul,  is  a  part  of  both 
parents,  yet  neither  loses  anything,  but  both 
remain  entire.) 

i2th.  The  Divine  Wisdom  is  spoken  of  with 
the  attributes  of  a  woman. 

1 3th.  A  negative  argument.  If  God  had  in- 
tended to  teach  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  masculine 
in  the  same  sense  that  the  Father  and  the  Son  are, 
why  not  use  a  name  which  should  convey  dis- 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     49 

tinctly  that  idea,  instead  of  by  the  use  of  an  un- 
certain or  neuter  word  leaving  the  question  open, 
so  that  the  very  Personality  of  the  Spirit  has  been 
called  in  question  ?  The  Hebrew  word  has,  at 
any  rate,  a  feminine  form,  and  the  Greek  is,  I 
suppose,  a  translation  of  the  Hebrew  word.  It 
is  true  that  "in  the  Greek  a  masculine  article  or 
epithet  is  joined  to  the  name  (Pneuma)  which  is 
naturally  of  the  neuter  gender,"  and  this,  so  far 
as  I  can  discover,  is  the  only  fact  which  makes 
against  my  argument.  What  it  amounts  to,  I  am 
not  scholar  enough  to  know. 

This  is  however  true  only  with  regard  to  the  pas- 
sages in  St.  John  xiv.  to  xvi.,  in  which  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  spoken  of  as  "The  Comforter."  The  author  of 
"  Arius  the  Libyan  "  refers  to  this  difficulty,  and  thus 
disposes  of  it :  "It  is  evident  that  in  these  places  the 
only  thing  that  can  be  meant  by  the  '  Holy  Ghost ' 
and  the  '  Spirit  of  Truth '  is  the  Paraclete,  the  Com- 
forter ;  and  while  the  Greek  word  for  comforter  is  a 
noun  of  the  masculine  gender,  the  words  '  Holy  Ghost ' 
and  '  Spirit  of  Truth '  still  retain  their  neuter  form,  al- 
though put  in  apposition  with  it;  and  the  pronouns 
'  he '  and  '  him '  take  their  masculine  form  from  the 
word  comforter,  and  not  from  the  words  Holy  Ghost 
and  Spirit,  which  »re  always  neuter,  and  express  noth- 
ing as  to  sex." 


50  The  Great  Mystery 

It  is  not  without  a  purpose  that  I  have  quoted 
so  largely  from  the  writings  of  men  we  both 
know  and  revere.  I  would  show  you  how 
hitherward  those  great  minds,  the  earnest,  re- 
ligious thinkers  of  our  day  have  been  tending, 
how  some  have  stood  on  the  very  threshold  of 
the  Truth,  how  one,  the  master  mind  has  had,  as 
it  were,  his  hand  on  the  very  veil  of  Isis,  yet 
could  not  or  durst  not  lift  it.  ... 

(The  closing  paragraphs  of  the  letter  are  per- 
sonal in  character,  and  unsuitable  for  publication.) 


NOTE  A. 

If  our  first  parents  had  not  fallen,  the  type 
would  have  been  far  more  perfect  with  the  union. 
(See  Trench.)  "These  human  relationships 
and  this  whole  constitution  of  things  earthly 
share  in  the  shortcoming  which  cleaves  to  all 
that  is  of  earth.  Obnoxious  to  change,  tainted 
with  sin,  shut  in  within  brief  limits  by  decay  and 
death,  they  are  often  weak  and  temporary,  where 
they  have  to  set  forth  things  strong  and  eternal; 
a  sinful  element  is  evidently  mingled  with  them 
while  they  yet  appear  as  symbols  of  what  is 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     51 

entirely  pure  and  heavenly.  They  break  down 
with  the  weight  that  is  laid  on  them."  "  Some- 
where or  other  man  is  a  liar.  He  is  false  that  is, 
to  the  divine  idea  which  he  was  meant  to  em- 
body, and  fails  to  bring  it  out  in  all  the  fulness  of 
its  perfection.  We  have  this  treasure  in  earthen 
vessels." 


NOTE  B. — Suggestions. 

The  Sanctity  of  the  Marriage  Tie. 

The  First  Ordinance  of  God.     "  Be  Fruitful." 

Christ's  First  Miracle  performed  at  a  Marriage 
Feast. 

Adultery  punished  with  death. 

Christ  enforces  and  makes  more  stringent  the 
laws  of  marriage.  "What  therefore  God  hath 
joined,  let  not  man  put  asunder." 

Atheism,  the  infidelity  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, Mohammedanism,  Mormonism,  Spiritual- 
ism, all  strike  first  at  marriage. 

NOTE  C. 

Although  woman's  subjection  to  man  is  a  part 
of  her  punishment,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  she 


52  The  Great  Mystery 

was  made  subordinate,  for  man  was  made  first, 
thenj&pjnan.  And  she  was  made  for  man,  to  be 
a  help-meet  for  man,  when  both  were  yet  un- 
fallen.  And  the  subordination  of  the  child  to 
the  parent  is  strongly  insisted  on  all  through 
Scripture. 

Now  we  find  that  the  Spirit  is  "sent"  and 
"  proceedeth "  and  is  of  God.  And  in  a  still 
more  emphatic  sense,  the  Son  is  sent.  But 
nothing  of  the  kind  is  ever  affirmed  of  the 
Father.  No,  "The  Father  is  greater  than  I." 
"The  Son  also  Himself  shall  be  subject,  that 
God  may  be  all  in  all."  "The  head  of  Christ  is 
God." 

The  man,  the  father,  the  husband,  is  head  of 
the  household,  as  husband  in  one  sense  and  de- 
gree, as  father  in  another  and  more  emphatic 
sense  and  greater  degree.  It  is  a  superiority  of 
relation  and  position,  not  of  character  nor  of 
nature. 


NOTE  D. 

Swedenborg's    idea   of    marriage    in   heaven, 
"The  marriage  of  minds."    The  two  are  re- 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     53 

garded  as  one  angel.  Yet  he  did  not  hold  the 
orthodox  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  Since  in  the 
One  God  there  are  three  distinct  persons,  we 
have  a  pledge  that  however  perfect  the  future 
union  of  souls,  the  identity  of  each  will  not  be 
lost. 

Kingsley  has  something  on  the  same  subject  in 
"Yeast."  Argemone  says:  "Oh,  the  angelic 
life  is  single."  Lancelot  "  Who  told  you  this  ?" 
She  quoted  the  stock  text  of  course.  "In 
heaven  they  neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  mar- 
riage, but  are  as  the  angels."  "  As  the  tree  falls 
so  it  lies,  and  God  forbid  that  those  who  have 
been  true  lovers  on  earth  should  contract  new 
marriages  in  the  next  world.  Love  is  eternal. 
And  how  do  we  know  that  these  angels  as  we 
call  them,  may  not  be  united  in  pairs  by  some 
marriage  bond  infinitely  more  perfect  than  any 
we  can  dream  of  on  earth  ?  "  (Yeast.) 


NOTE  E. 

In  the  angel's  address  to  Mary,  the  work  of 
both  Father  and  Spirit  in  the  human  birth  of 
Christ  is  indicated.  "The  Holy  Ghost  shall 


54  The  Great  Mystery 

come  upon  thee,  and  the  power  of  the  Highest 
shall  overshadow  thee,  therefore  also  that  Holy 
Thing  which  shall  be  born  of  thee,  shall  be  called 
the  Son  of  God." 
The  Father  is  "The  Highest." 


NOTE  F. — On  Ephesians  V.  jr. 

It  is  true  that  St.  Paul  quotes  this  passage  in  a 
different  connection,  and  uses  it  to  illustrate 
Christ's  relation  to  the  Church. 

But  his  phraseology  is  peculiar  and  seems  to 
imply  that  he  here  uses  it  in  a  secondary  sense. 
For  after  saying  "A  man  shall  be  joined  to  his 
wife  and  they  two  shall  be  one  flesh,"  he  adds 
"This  is  a  great  mystery,  but  I  speak  concerning 
Christ  and  the  Church."  As  if  he  would  say, 
"This  oneness  of  two  typifies  a  great  mystery, 
but  at  present,  I  use  it  in  a  restricted  sense  to 
illustrate  the  relation  between  Christ  and  the 
Church."  If  this  be  far-fetched,  then  what  is  the 
meaning  of  "but"  in  this  connection  ? 


NOTE  G. — On  the  Honor  ableness  of  Marriage. 
The  mother  of  our  Lord  was  a  married  woman, 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     55 

not  indeed  when  the  angel  came  to  her,  but  even 
then  espoused,  and  formally  married  at  the  time 
of  his  birth,  and  if  we  are  willing  to  take  the 
honest  and  fair  interpretation  of  the  simple  text 
of  Scripture,  she  was  afterward  truly  the  wife 
of  Joseph  and  mother  of  his  children.  For  the 
angel  says  to  him,  Fear  not  to  take  unto  thee 
Mary  thy  wife.  And  afterward  we  read  that 
"he  knew  her  not  until  she  had  brought  forth 
her  firstborn  son,"  and  again  we  read  of  the 
mother  and  brothers  and  sisters  of  our  Lord. 

Do  not  think  that  in  the  foregoing  pages  I 
meant  to  cast  any  slight  on  the  mother  of  the 
Lord.  How  should  I,  when  God  pronounced 
her  by  His  angel  "Blessed  among  women"? 
But  would  not  her  righteous  soul  be  more  vexed 
than  any  other,  could  she  know  of  the  idolatrous 
honors  that  have  been  paid  her  ? 

In  her  indeed,  more  than  in  any  other,  the  pure 
type  reappears,  woman  as  she  rose  pure  and 
stainless  under  the  hand  of  her  Maker.  Woman 
is  "saved  in  child-bearing,"  it  is  as  the  mother 
that  she  reasserts  herself  the  type  of  the  Divine, 
and  above  all,  in  her  who  was  "  blessed  among 
women." 


56  The  Great  Mystery 

NOTE  H.— On  Romans  i.  18,  et  seq. 
The  argument  of  St.  Paul  is  very  peculiar,  in  its 
premises,  suite,  and  conclusions.  The  heathen 
are  inexcusable  because  they  held  the  truth  in 
unrighteousness,  because  God  was  manifest  in 
them,  because  the  invisible  things  of  God  were 
clearly  shown  by  the  things  that  were  made; 
these  things  he  restricts  to  two,  His  Eternal 
Power  and  Godhead.  Now  in  the  first  of  Genesis 
there  are  two  respects  in  which  man  appears  to 
be  made  in  God's  image,  "in  the  image  of  God 
male  and  female,''  and  "in  the  image  of  God 
with  dominion  "  (let  them  have  dominion  over 
the  creatures),  the  power  and  Godhead  thus  be- 
ing clearly  shown  by  the  things  that  were  made. 
But  man  was  made  in  the  image  of  God  first  in 
his  mode  of  existence,  one  yet  three;  next  in  his 
attributes,  as  in  the  Westminster  catechism  it  is 
put,  "in  knowledge,  righteousness  and  holiness." 
This  is  implied,  for  God's  work  is  all  very  good, 
the  image  and  likeness  was  one  that  satisfied  the 
Divine  original.  And  it  is  perhaps,  more  per- 
fect than  we  are  accustomed  to  consider  it,  even 
repeating  so  far  as  the  finite  can  repeat  the  in- 
finite, those  attributes  of  God  which  in  their  full- 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     57 

est  sense,  belong  only  to  Him.  Omniscience, 
omnipotence,  omnipresence,  are  God's  alone. 
Yet  who,  especially  in  these  latter  days,  would 
dare  to  limit  the  capacities  of  man's  mind,  even 
fallen  as  he  is.  Robertson  holds  that  it  was  the 
perfection  and  truthfulness  of  Christ's  humanity 
that  enabled  him  to  read  men's  minds  as  he  did. 
Who  shall  say  what  we  might  do,  if  we  were 
true  to  the  Divine  idea! 

At  all  events,  it  is  necessary  to  St.  Paul's  argu- 
ment that  men  should  be  able  to  argue  from  the 
finite  to  the  infinite.  But,  he  says,  although 
they  knew  God,  they  glorified  Him  not  as  God, 
but  they  changed  the  glory  of  the  incorruptible 
God  into  the  image  of  corruptible  man,  and 
birds  and  beasts,  and  creeping  things;  they 
changed  the  truth  of  God  into  a  lie,  and  wor- 
shipped the  creature  more  than  the  Creator. 
They  reversed  the  natural  order,  and  instead  of 
trying  to  raise  themselves  to  realize  the  Divine 
idea,  they  degraded  the  idea  of  God,  and  made 
Him  like  their  sinful  selves.  And  herein  lies  the 
force  of  the  argument  and  the  appropriateness  of 
their  punishment.  By  this  folly  and  wickedness, 
they  so  completely  lost  the  image  of  God,  that 


58  The  Great  Mystery 

they  were  given  up,  and  gave  themselves  up  to 
nameless  and  unnatural  lusts.  (See  Romans  i. 
24-27.) 

Note  J.  has  been  omitted.  But  see  note  which 
follows. 

On  St.  John  iii.  5,  and  Titus  iii.  5. — "All  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  natural  birth  were  preordained  to 
typify  the  heavenly." — Trench. 

For  a  child  to  be  born,  implies  first,  the  communi- 
cation of  life,  a  sort  of  creative  act;  then  a  process 
by  which  that  life  is  nourished  and  developed.  And 
so,  in  the  spiritual  birth,  there  is  the  same  sequence. 
In  common  theological  parlance,  the  word  "regenera- 
tion" covers  both,  but  in  the  only  place  in  Scripture 
where  the  word  (palingenesia)  is  used  of  the  soul,  it  is 
evidently  restricted  to  the  creative  act,  as  set  forth  by 
baptism,  "  The  washing  of  regeneration ;  "  the  gradual 
process  is  expressed  there,  by  the  words  "renewal  of 
the  Holy  Ghost."  In  regeneration,  we  are  not  only 
"  born  of  the  Spirit  "  but  "  begotten  of  God  "  (i  John 
v.  i,  4,  18,  iii.  9,  iv.  7;  James  i.  18),  begotten  by  a 
creative  act  of  sovereign  will,  but  born  of  the  Spirit 
by  the  gradual  process  of  renewal.  So  that  born  of 
water  and  of  the  Spirit  would  express  both. 

And  herein  lies  the  peculiar  fitness  of  baptism  to  set 
forth  the  creative  act,  that  as  by  the  "corruptible 
seed "  of  man,  our  natures  are  transmitted  impure 
from  father  to  son,  so  from  the  "  incorruptible  seed  " 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     59 

of  God  (i  Peter  i.  23)  is  generated  a  new  and  pure 
principle  of  Divine  life  which  ultimately  exterminates 
the  other.  And  the  pure  water  of  baptism  fitly  typi- 
fies this  purifying,  vivifying,  "incorruptible  seed." 

So  that  the  verse  would  say,  if  we  would  receive  it, 
"born  of  the  Father  and  the  Spirit."  Does  not  this 
throw  some  light  on  the  mysterious  verse  about  the 
three  witnesses,  "The  Spirit,  the  Water,  and  the 
Blood"? 

And  as  for  repentance  and  renewal,  they  are  only 
visible  effects  of  divine  causes  at  work.  And  what  is, 
according  to  Christ,  the  central  idea  of  true  repent- 
ance? Is  it  not  this,  "I  will  arise,  and  go  to  my 
Father"  ?  For  in  the  very  act  by  which  we  become 
the  sons  of  God,  He  communicates  the  power  to  rec- 
ognize that  relationship.  And  this  power  of  recogni- 
tion is  the  witness  which  the  Spirit  bears  that  we  are 
indeed  the  children  of  God. 

"  The  cradle  of  the  Lord's  newborn 
Where  deeply  lurks  the  living  beam 

Lit  in  the  glad  baptismal  morn. 
But  into  keen,  enduring  flame 

It  may  not  burst,  till  Heavenly  Love 
Have  o'er  it  spread,  in  Christ's  dear  Name 

The  pinions  of  His  brooding  Dove." 

— Keble,     Lyra  Innocentium* 


NOTE  K. — On  the  Unpardonable  Sin. 
Those  glorious  works  of  beneficence  which 


60  The  Great  Mystery 

Christ  wrought  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
the  wicked  Pharisees  accused  Him  of  doing  by 
the  indwelling  power  of  "an  unclean  spirit." 
Their  sin  thus  took  the  form  of  a  peculiar  and 
deadly  insult  to  the  Divine  purity  of  the  Sacred 
Third  Person  of  the  Trinity.  If  we  consider  that 
this  deadliest  insult  was  offered  to  the  person  of 
the  Divine  Mother  of  God,  we  can  better  under- 
stand why  it  should  be  the  one  sin  for  which 
there  can  be  no  forgiveness  here  or  hereafter. 
For  God  has  implanted  such  a  corresponding 
feeling  in  the  breast  of  man,  that  even  on  earth, 
according  to  man's  code  of  honor,  the  one  un- 
pardonable sin  is  an  aspersion  on  the  purity  of 
wife  or  mother. 


NOTE  L.— On  the  jth  Chapter  of  the  Booh  of 
Wisdom. 

From  Westcott's  article  on  the  Book  of  Wis- 
dom in  Smith  &  Wace's  Dictionary.  "The 
magnificent  description  of  Wisdom,  Chapter  vii. 
22  to  viii.  i,  must  rank  among  the  noblest  pas- 
sages of  human  eloquence,  and  it  would  perhaps 
be  impossible  to  point  out  any  piece  of  equal 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     61 

length  in  the  remains  of  classical  antiquity  more 
pregnant  with  noble  thoughts  or  more  rich  in 
expressive  phraseology."  "In  the  book  of 
Proverbs,  Wisdom  is  represented  as  present  with 
God  before  and  during  the  creation  of  the  world. 
In  the  book  of  Wisdom,  Wisdom  is  identified 
with  the  Holy  Ghost." 

"  It  seems  indeed  impossible  to  study  the  book 
dispassionately  and  not  feel  that  it  forms  one  of 
the  last  links  in  the  chain  of  providential  connec- 
tion between  the  Old  and  New  Covenants.  It 
would  not  be  easy  to  find  elsewhere  any  pre- 
Christian  view  of  religion  equally  wide,  sus- 
tained, and  definite."  And  he  also  says  that  this 
book  with  the  rest  of  the  Apocrypha  has  been  by 
the  English  Church  strangely  neglected.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  St.  Paul  repeatedly  quotes  from 
it  although  he  does  not  name  it,  and  it  contains 
a  singularly  detailed  prophecy  of  Christ's 
martyrdom. 


Book  of  Wisdom,  chapter  vii.  7:  "I  called 
upon  God  and  the  Spirit  of  Wisdom  came  unto 
me.  10.  I  loved  her  above  health  and  beauty 


62  The  Great  Mystery 

and  chose  to  have  her  instead  of  light,  for  the 
light  that  cometh  from  her  never  goeth  out.  1 1. 
All  good  things  came  to  me  together  with  her. 
12.  And  I  knew  not  that  she  was  the  mother  of 
them. 

"24.  Wisdom  is  more  moving  than  any  motion. 
She  passeth  and  goeth  through  all  things  by  rea- 
son of  her  pureness.  25.  For  she  is  the  breath 
(Spirit)  of  the  power  of  God,  and  a  pure  influence 
flowing  from  the  glory  of  the  Almighty.  26-29. 
She  is  the  brightness  of  the  everlasting  light,  the 
unspotted  mirror  of  the  power  of  God,  and  the 
image  of  His  goodness.  And  being  but  One, 
she  can  do  all  things,  and  remaining  in  herself 
she  maketh  all  things  new:  and  in  all  ages,  en- 
tering into  holy  souls,  she  maketh  them  friends 
of  God  and  prophets.  For  God  loveth  none  but 
him  that  dwelleth  with  Wisdom.  For  she  is 
more  beautiful  than  the  sun  and  above  all  the 
order  of  the  stars:  being  compared  with  the 
light  she  is  found  before  it. 

"Chapter  viii.  3,  4.  In  that  she  is  conversant 
with  God  she  magnifieth  her  nobility:  yea,  the 
Lord  of  all  things  himself  loved  her.  For  she  is 
privy  to  the  mysteries  of  the  knowledge  of  God, 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     63 

and  a  lover  of  His  words.  17.  Now  when  I 
considered  these  things  in  myself  and  pondered 
them,  how  that  to  be  allied  unto  Wisdom  is  im- 
mortality ...  18  ...  I  went  about 
seeking  how  to  take  her  to  me.  ...  21. 
Nevertheless  when  I  perceived  that  I  could  not 
otherwise  obtain  her,  except  God  gave  her  to 
me,  ...  I  prayed  unto  the  Lord  and  be- 
sought Him  and  with  my  whole  heart  I  said, 
(Chapter  ix.  i)  O  God  of  my  fathers  and  Lord  of 
mercy,  who  hast  made  all  things  with  Thy  word, 
4.  Give  me  Wisdom  that  sitteth  by  Thy 
throne,  and  reject  me  not  from  among  Thy 
children.  8-10.  Thou  hast  commanded  me  to 
build  a  temple  upon  Thy  holy  mount,  and  an 
altar  in  the  city  wherein  Thou  dwellest,  a  resem- 
blance of  the  holy  tabernacle  which  Thou  hast 
prepared  from  the  beginning.  And  Wisdom 
was  with  Thee  which  knoweth  Thy  works  and 
was  present  when  Thou  madest  the  world,  and 
knew  what  was  acceptable  in  Thy  sight  and  right 
in  Thy  commandments.  O  send  her  out  of  Thy 
holy  heavens  and  from  the  throne  of  Thy  glory. 
1 6,  17.  The  things  that  are  in  Heaven  who 
hath  searched  out,  and  Thy  counsel  who  hath 


64  The  Great  Mystery 

known,  except  Thou  give  Wisdom  and  send  Thy 
Holy  Spirit  from  above." 


NOTE   M. — On   i    Corinthians   xi.   10  and  the 
context. 

Why  must  a  woman  be  veiled  ?  "  Because  of 
the  angels."  That  is  a  strange  answer.  What 
does  it  mean  ?  What  does  a  veil  mean  ?  Some- 
thing hidden — covered,  "revelation  is  unveiling." 
What  is  there  of  woman  that  is  hidden  of  which 
this  veil  is  a  symbol  ?  Her  typical  likeness  to  the 
Holy  Spirit.  From  man,  for  her  sin,  for  in  the 
Fall  she  was  far  the  guiltier  of  the  two,  her  like- 
ness to  God  is  hidden,  to  him  she  is  but  the 
glory  of  man.  She  is  subject  to  man.  Man 
alone  is  the  image  and  "  glory  of  God."  To  him 
then,  her  veil  has  no  profound  meaning,  and 
therefore  this  passage  has  always  remained  a 
mystery.  But  the  angels, — they  know  why, — 
they  know  that  as  she  would  be  like  "the gods," 
so  by  a  stern  but  just  decree,  her  typical  and  true 
likeness  is  hidden  from  all,  even  from  herself, 
and  so  she  is  doubly  "deceived,  being  in  the 
transgression."  Her  curse  was  threefold.  She 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     6_f 

was  cursed  as  mother  and  cursed  as  wife,  and 
these  are  plain  denunciations,  and  terribly  have 
they  been  fulfilled.  In  all  the  long  misery  of 
pregnancy,  in  the  agonies  and  deadly  perils  of 
childbirth,  she  drees  her  curse  as  mother.  In 
her  world-wide  humiliation  she  has  suffered  the 
curse  of  subjection  as  wife,  although  where  the 
Cross  of  Christ  is  set  up,  that  curse  has  been 
mercifully  lightened. 

But  the  third  curse  is  more  mysterious,  and 
doubtless  intentionally  so,  for  to  have  made  it 
plainer  would  have  made  it  void.  "Thy  desire 
shall  be  to  thy  husband."  .  .  .  What  was 
the  woman's  desire  ?  There  was  something  she 
had  desired  so  ardently  as  to  risk  death  for  it.  It 
was  to  be  "as  the  gods,"  "to  be  wise."  She 
who  was  made  in  the  image  of  "  The  Wisdom 
of  God  "  was  not  content  with  that  high  honor, 
but  would  exalt  herself  by  forbidden  means.  So 
she  was  struck  down  from  her  height,  and  the 
desire  of  her  heart  was  given  to  her  husband. 
He  alone  has  been  regarded  as  the  image  of 
God.  .  .  . 

In  commenting  on  verses  7,  8,  "  He  (the  man)  is 
the  image  and  glory  of  God :  but  the  woman  is  the 


66  The  Great  Mystery 

glory  of  the  man.  For  the  man  is  not  of  the  woman 
but  the  woman  is  of  the  man."  Professor  Lias, 
(Camb.  Comm.)  tells  us,  this  does  not  mean  that 
woman  is  in  no  sense  to  be  regarded  as  the  image  and 
glory  of  God,  but  that  man  is  so  immediately,  she 
mediately,  through  man.  In  other  words,  through 
her  procession  from  Adam,  she  is  the  image  of  God 
the  Holy  Ghost,  who  proceedeth  from  the  Father. 


NOTE  N.— On  Matthew  xix.  n, 

All  men  cannot  receive  this  saying,  etc. 
.,  .  .  The  whole  character  of  the  observa- 
tion and  the  context  seems  to  imply  that  the 
words  "  this  saying  "  refer  to  Christ's  declaration 
of  the  sanctity  and  indissolubility  of  marriage  as  a 
holy  ordinance  of  God,  and  so  He  would  say: 
All  men  are  not  capable  of  appreciating  this  view 
of  the  sacredness  of  marriage.  For  some  are  in- 
capacitated by  birth  or  accident,  and  some  even 
are  so  mistaken  as  to  think  of  pleasing  God  by  a 
voluntary  and  forced  celibacy,  so  making  them- 
selves virtually  or  literally  (as  some  have  done) 
eunuchs  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven's  sake.  And 
it  is  well  known  that  it  was  just  the  monks  of 
the  Middle  Ages  who  were  most  incapable  of 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Revelation     67 

appreciating  the  "spiritual  beauty  of  marriage." 
They  were  "  not  able  to  receive"  this  teaching  of 
Christ.1 


NOTE  O. 

As  everything  in  the  Book  of  Nature  and  the 
Bible,  the  written  and  unwritten  books  of  God, 
leads  constantly  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  and 
from  the  higher  still  up  to  the  highest, — I  believe 
that  the  collective  church,  the  bride,  white  robed 
and  sanctified  and  wedded  to  Christ,  is  the  grand 
and  final  type  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  and  that  those 
parables  of  the  leaven  and  lost  piece  of  money, 
and  the  vision  of  the  star-crowned  queen  are 
meant  to  lead  us  to  this.  "And  the  Spirit  and 
the  Bride  say,  Come!" 

1  The  Church  of  Rome  has  ever  taken  a  false,  degrading, 
and  unscriptural  view  of  marriage. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature 


"  The  sense-world  shadows  forth  the  spirit  world. 
These  shadow  pictures  are  vouchsafed  to  man, 
That  he,  thereby,  the  Infinite  may  interpret." 

— PERSIAN  MYSTICAL  POEM. 

"  This  visible  world  is  but  a  picture  of  the  invisible." 
— SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE,  "  Religio  Medici." 


CO 

ffatber  anfc  /IRotbcr 
fln  loving 

Ol  f)ome 


Preface  to  the  Study  from  Nature 


FOR  the  major  idea  which  I  have  endeavored  to 
elucidate  in  this  Nature  Study,  I  make  no  claim 
whatever  to  originality.  It  was  given  me  by  my 
mother,  to  whom  it  came  in  early  life,  a  vision  of 
beauty  and  mystery,  in  whose  soul  it  grew  and 
took  shape  through  the  days  of  her  young  wife- 
hood  and  motherhood,  by  whom  it  has  been 
treasured  ever  since,  until  the  present  time,  when 
we  have  judged  that  men  will  be  ready  to  discuss 
it  with  calm  and  pure  hearts,  for  only  such  can 
hope  to  see  God. 

If  there  be  anything  original  in  the  demonstra- 
tion, it  will  be  found  in  the  idea  of  referring  the 
question  at  issue  to  the  teachings  of  Nature,  and 
in  the  particular  method  of  so  doing. 

Ruskin  seems  to  have  had  a  very  poor  opinion 
of  the  theological  knowledge  of  the  young 
women  of  England  in  his  day,  and  a  great  aver- 
sion to  the  idea  of  their  trying  to  remedy  the 
deficiency.  It  may  be  seriously  doubted  whether 

73 


74  Preface 

it  could  be  said  to  their  children  at  the  present 
day,  "You  probably  know  less  about  God" 
"than  any  poor  little  red,  black,  or  blue  savage 
running  wild  in  the  pestilent  woods,  or  naked 
on  the  hot  sands  of  the  earth."  However  this 
may  be,  and  in  spite  of  these  sage  contra-evolu- 
tionary dictums,  I  am  persuaded  that  the  higher 
truth  lies  in  another  dictum,  that  this  is  Life 
Eternal,  to  know  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus 
Christ  whom  He  has  sent,  and  yet  another,  that 
he  who  seeks  shall  find.  May  it  not  be  that  be- 
cause he  did  not  seek  in  the  faith  of  finding,  this 
greatest  critic  of  human  art  failed  utterly  to  see 
and  know  the  Artist  in  the  greatest  of  all  works 
of  art,  Nature  ? 

By  years  of  serious  scientific  training  and  busy 
life  among  men,  I  have  been  led  to  the  line  of 
thought  followed  in  this  study;  and  among  the 
writers  for  whose  works  I  am  most  grateful  (al- 
though I  do  not  for  a  moment  claim  that  there 
was  any  thought  of  leading  up  to  this)  I  should 
not  fail  to  mention  particularly  Mr.  Darwin,  and 
the  Duke  of  Argyll,  and  later,  Dr.  John  Fiske, 
Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  the  late  Professor  Rider,  Dr. 
George  A.  Piersol,  Dr.  B.  C.  Hirst,  Dr.  A.  J. 


Preface  75 

Mason,  and  Prof.  Henry  Drummond.  To  Mr. 
Drummond,  I  am  indebted  not  alone  for  his 
works,  but  for  the  almost  ideal  life  which  he 
lived  and  so  strongly  have  I  felt  his  personal  in- 
fluence, and  so  much  have  I  lived  with  his 
thoughts,  (I  never  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting 
him  otherwise)  that  I  have  quoted  somewhat 
from  them  in  these  pages.  I  am  persuaded  that 
Mr.  Drummond  believed  or  was  on  the  threshold 
of  believing  as  I  do  of  the  nature  of  God,  and  I 
find  in  his  works  many  passages  in  which  he 
seems  to  come  to  a  point  but  one  removed  from 
saying  in  substance  what  I  have  tried  to  say  here. 
Had  he  lived,  I  think  he  would  have  said  it,  and 
said  it  better. 

Finally,  let  me  say  that  I  have  confined  my  at- 
tention here  to  the  study  of  this  question  through 
Nature  alone,  in  order  to  hear  what  she  might 
have  to  tell  me;  but  in  so  doing,  I  acknowledge 
the  higher  authority  of  the  book  of  Revelation 
over  that  of  my  interpretation  of  the  book  of 
Nature.  And  perhaps  I  can  best  express  this  in 
saying  that  I  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  only 

begotten  Son  of  God. 

W.  H.  J. 

Philadelphia,  November  29,  1900. 


I 

The  Artist,  his  Ideal,  and  his  Work 
THE  STANDPOINT 


IT  has  many  times  proved  a  recreation,  as  well 
as  my  appreciated  privilege,  to  watch  from  the 
vantage  ground  of  intimacy,  the  conception  and 
creation  through  years,  of  a  great  American 
artist's  greatest  works.  There  was  an  ever-pres- 
ent mind,  perhaps  unsurpassed  in  its  power  of 
grasping  facts,  and  of  forming  and  holding  ideals. 
No  mere  appreciation  of  the  appearance  of  things, 
but  a  knowledge  of  their  actuality.  Not  an  eye 
for  the  mere  sparkling  azure  of  the  sea,  but  a 
grand  soul  for  the  ocean's  trackless  wastes  and 
the  depths  that  made  it  blue;  an  experience  of  its 
storms  and  its  calms,  years  spent  by  its  side, 
months  spent  on  its  heaving  bosom,  days  spent 
in  studying  its  birth  and  life,  its  works  and  the 
laws  by  which  it  works.  Again,  not  an  eye 

77 


78  The  Great  Mystery 

alone  for  highly  colored  canyons  and  their 
deeply  buried  boiling  streams;  but  time  spent  by 
their  side  and  in  their  depths,  knowledge  of  their 
rocks  and  the  order  and  process  of  their  forma- 
tion, of  their  trees  and  the  classification  and 
nature  of  their  foliation,  of  the  birds  and  beasts 
that  inhabit  the  forest  depths  and  the  mountain 
wilds.  And  above  all,  and  in  keeping  with  all,  a 
great  love  for  all. 

What  the  artist  painted  was  never  exactly 
what  his  eyes  saw;  it  was  an  ideal  compounded 
of  this,  and  of  what  he  knew,  felt,  thought,  and 
loved.  It  was  his  ideal  of  truth,  truth  as  appre- 
hended and  assimilated  by  him,  the  truth  that 
was  in,  and  of  him. 

When  the  ideal  was  formed,  then,  and  not  till 
then,  followed  the  work. — A  great  white  can- 
vas, an  indefinite  outline,  rough  indeed,  and  all 
but  meaningless,  then  months  spent  in  the  laying 
of  fundamental  or  base  colors,  and  those  which 
will  later  on,  give  body  and  tone  to  that  which 
is  to  follow.  Massive  forms  appear,  and  here 
and  there,  some  details  are  suggested  and  imper- 
fectly worked  out,  and  of  these,  some  are  mon- 
strosities, or  but  hints  of  later  things,  and  are 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature        79 

themselves  blotted  out.  Large  patches  of  green 
will  now  appear  as  forests  of  pine  or  oak,  and 
will  prove  in  keeping  with  great  piles  of  red 
sandstone  or  other  formation.  A  harmony  has 
appeared,  a  certain  reason  in  things.  More  de- 
tails and  softer  colors,  and  more  harmony  and 
more;  and  higher  yet,  a  train  or  trend  of  thought, 
and  in  it,  mind.  Details  everywhere,  mind 
everywhere.  Perhaps  a  great  white  cross  upon 
an  everlasting  rock  and  a  solitary  human  figure, 
his  body  in  the  valley,  his  eyes  on  the  mountain 
heights;  or  the  shadow  of  an  eagle  on  a  desert 
place,  a  carcass  where  no  life  is. 

The  work  is  finished,  the  artist  is  in  it,  if  we 
can  see  him.  We  read  his  ideals  as  best  we  may, 
through  his  creations,  through  them  also  we  read 
his  nature,  for  the  ideal  is  of  him.  Through  the 
first  work  we  may  see  love  in  him,  and  a  looking 
to  the  heights;— through  the  other,  that  where 
there  is  no  life  and  progress,  there  the  eagles  will 
be  gathered. 

Through  the  pages  to  follow,  I  would  have  you 
keep  this  simile  constantly  in  mind,  as  it  "but 
speaks  an  imaged  life,"  and  represents  better 
than  any  other  that  suggests  itself  to  me,  the 


8o  The  Great  Mystery 

greatest  work  of  art,  its  ideals  which  are  all 
truth  and  beauty  and  love,  and  the  artist,  God. 

Nature,  as  we  know  it,  seems  to  be  indeed, 
the  greatest  work  of  art,  so  both  science  and 
philosophy  are  inclining  to  think.  They  do  not 
indeed,  put  it  just  in  this  way  ;  but,  discovering 
through  Nature  and  Mind  great  ideals  of  truth, 
beauty,  wisdom,  purity,  and  love,  they  say  in 
other  words  the  same  thing,  namely  that  "All 
things  come  of  Thee,  and  of  Thine  own  have  we 
given  Thee!"  that  things  were  made  for  the 
ideal's  sake,  and  whether  all  else  were  made  for 
man  or  not,  certainly  man  and  all  else  were  made 
for  a  revelation  or  manifestation  of  God.  "  He 
who  runs  may  read." 

The  relationship  which  exists  between  the 
human  artist  and  his  work  is  this:  the  mind 
makes  the  ideal,  which  is  either  wholly  derived 
from  within,  or  is  a  compound  of  ideas  from 
within,  and  of  certain  ideas  and  groups  of  ideas 
derived  from  without.  The  ideal  is  therefore 
partially,  at  least,  limited  by  the  forming  mind. 
It  can  never  be  greater  than  the  artist,  unless  he 
goes  outside  himself  for  part  of  it.  This  he 
usually  does,  so  that,  in  some  respects,  it  will  be 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature       81 

greater  than  himself.  The  work  is  the  image  of 
the  ideal,  and  is  therefore  also  limited  by  the 
mind.  In  the  case  of  God  and  Nature,  there  is 
this  difference  from  the  above.  Whether  God  be 
finite  or  infinite,  which  is  no  longer  an  open 
question,  His  ideals  are  wholly  from  within  the 
limits  of  His  mind.  He  could  not  have  gone  out- 
side of  Himself  for  them,  since  there  was  no 
without.  And  the  work  is  the  image  of  the 
ideal,  and  therefore  also  within  the  compass,  if 
we  may  so  speak,  of  His  mind. 

In  using  the  words  " limit "  and  "compass "  of 
infinite  mind,  I  mean,  of  course,  derived  wholly 
from  within  it.  The  human  artist  is  interpreting 
another  mind's  ideas,  which  he  makes  his  own 
ideals.  The  closer  he  reads  the  ideas,  the  higher 
and  truer  will  be  his  ideals.  The  man  who  can 
get  no  further  than  lewd  ballet  girls  will  hardly 
have  such  ideals  as  we  believe  we  find  in  the 
works  of  Burne-Jones  and  Hofmann.  But  in 
God,  are  His  own  ideals.  Evidently  therefore, 
there  is  inexpressibly  more  of  God  in  His  work 
than  of  the  artist  in  his. 

God's  ideals  are  in  Himself,  they  are  also  ideals  repre- 
senting His  mind,  existing  in  it.  The  progress  repre- 


82  The  Great  Mystery 

sented  in  the  work,  and  which  ever  makes  toward  the 
ideals,  and  which  has,  in  turn,  its  own  ideals,  may  prove 
eternal  in  time,  an  eternal  approach  to  Himself,  or 
rather  to  the  ideals  which  are  in  Him, — the  perfect 
one,  perfect  in  the  sense  here,  of  embracing  all  ideals. 
Also,  if  His  life  is  the  highest  or  best, — perfect  in 
this  somewhat  different  sense,  (and  it  is  hardly  con- 
ceivable that  it  should  be  otherwise  than  perfect  in 
every  applicable  sense)  our  lives  which  are  making  to- 
ward His  ideals,  must  also  be  tending  toward  the  best, 
and  we  are  ever  more  and  more  divine. 

In  the  beginning  God  stretched  before  the 
great  white  throne  a  canvas  from  the  four  corners 
of  endlessness,  and  He  called  the  canvas  Space; 
and  He  raised  His  hand  and  began  to  work,  and 
Time  began.  And  in  the  deep  recesses  of  time, 
there  was  a  universe  upon  the  canvas,  and  it  was 
without  form  and  void,  and  darkness  was  upon 
the  face  of  all;  and  there  was  no  light  nor  life 
there.  And  in  the  course  of  ages,  foundations 
were  laid,  and  upon  them,  seas  and  floods 
appeared,  and  light  appeared  above  and  life 
within,  and  these  were  the  signs  of  great  ideals, 
and  the  ideals  were  of  God.  And  we  say  that 
God  is  Light,  and  He  is  Life. 

And  monstrosities  appeared,  big  in  body  and 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature       83 

without  reason,  and  they  died,  for  there  was 
nothing  in  them  to  live. 

And  as  time  grew  older,  a  wonder  appeared 
upon  the  canvas,  and  the  wonder  was  mankind, 
— men,  women,  and  children, — and  they  had 
been  from  the  beginning  of  life  as  the  beasts, 
and  later  had  reason  and  wisdom,  and  knew  that 
they  were  the  image  of  an  ideal  and  the  ideal 
was  God.  And  Reason  and  Wisdom  were  God. 
And  still  later,  Love  was  manifested  upon  and 
within  the  work,  and  it  was  called  God,  for  it 
was  God,  and  embraced  all  other  ideals. 

And  in  these  still  later  times,  other  ideals  have 
manifested  themselves,  and  some  are  known  and 
others  are  thought  to  be  of  the  nature  of  God. 
Of  these,  are  work  itself,  and  progress,  liberty, 
equality  of  all  men,  that  is  of  all  mankind,  of 
men  and  women,  of  children  and  parents,  who 
are  equal  as  God  is  equal,  free  as  God  is  free,  in 
the  liberty  of  truth.  And  there  are  many  others, 
and  among  them,  two  which  are  one,  and  which 
seem  to  me  to  reach  farther  and  more  thoroughly 
to  permeate  the  work  than  any  other  except 
Love  itself,  and  these  are  the  ideas  of  marriage 
and  of  the  unity  of  the  family. 


84  The  Great  Mystery 

In  the  following  pages  will  you  consider  with 
me,  in  the  unfeigned  reverence  of  children  for 
their  parents,  and  in  the  name  of  the  truth  which 
is  to  make  us  free,  whether  or  not  there  may  be 
anything,  and  what  it  may  be  in  the  Divine 
nature  which  stands  as  the  eternal  prototype  and 
raison  d'etre  of  those  things  which  permeate  all 
life  as  we  know  it,  of  the  holiest  relationships 
which  exist  among  men,  and  of  two  of  those 
goals  toward  which  our  physical,  mental,  and 
spiritual  evolution  are  making, — pure  marriage, 
and  the  family  unity  which  will  come  of  perfect 
love. 

In  discussing  this  lofty  theme,  let  us  realize 
what  is  our  standpoint  and  what  are  our  vantage 
grounds.  Are  we  not  ourselves  forming  figures 
upon  that  great  canvas,  and  central  figures  too  ? 
Much  around  us  is  in  more  detail  than  we.  Our 
drapery  is  largely  painted  in,  but  our  faces  are 
somewhat  lacking  in  soul,  as  the  artist  says. 
Underneath  and  around  us  we  have  all  history, 
from  the  stretching  of  the  canvas,  before  we 
were  so  much  as  sketched  in,  until  the  present 
day.  And  we  have  the  great  secret  at  last  re- 
vealed in  the  past  century,  but  working  through 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature       85 

all  the  ages.  We  read  in  this  the  greater  future. 
And  in  all  we  read,  as  we  may,  the  artist's  mind, 
his  nature,  his  methods,  and  the  trend  x  of  his 
work, — himself,  in  short,  for  he  is  in  all. 

In  all  the  foregoing  I  have  spoken  much  of 
God,  nor  have  I  thought  it  necessary  or  within 
the  scope  of  this  discussion  to  prove  His  exis- 
tence. In  a  nature  discussion,  if  I  may  so  call 
this,  it  matters  not  what  name  we  give  to  that 
which  I  have  called  God.  Our  name  will  not 
affect  His  identity.  Without  wishing  to  follow 
in  the  steps  of  a  class  of  writers  who  occasionally 
and  abruptly,  would  sweep  from  the  board,  so 
to  speak,  with  one  move  of  a  pawn  a  plurality 
of  chessmen,  including  perhaps  a  king  or  so;  I 
would  state  that  the  existence  of  God  is,  in  the 
present  day,  acknowledged  by  thinking  men 
who  occasionally  lift  their  eyes  from  the  stage  of 
their  microscope,  and  by  many  men  who  do  not. 
And  if  there  be  others  who  yet  do  not  see,  I 

1 1  shall  make  some  use  of  this  word,  trend.  It  is  not  promi- 
nent in  recent  scientific  literature,  and  yet  perhaps  no  other 
expresses  so  well  the  method  by  which  through  evolution  we 
read  from  the  past  into  the  future.  It  suits  my  purpose,  and 
moreover,  is  short,  means  something,  and  that,  exactly  what  it 
says. 


86  The  Great  Mystery 

would  say  to  these  that  in  Mr.  Fiske's  "  Through 
Nature  to  God,"  I  have  found  some  natural  rea- 
sons which  I  can  neither  excel  nor  so  well  repeat, 
for  believing  in  the  existence  of  both  God  and 
men. 

By  God's  ideals,  I  mean  whatsoever  there  may 
be  in  God  which  stands  as  prototype  to  Nature. 

And  by  Nature,  I  mean  what  others  mean, 
when  speaking  in  the  broadest  sense  of  the 
word,  namely  that  which  conforms  to  God's 
laws. 


II 

Of  Analogies 


Consider  the  Lilies  ! 

THERE  are  several  methods  by  which  we  at- 
tempt to  demonstrate  truths  to  each  other,  and 
of  these,  two  are  in  most  frequent  requisition, 
namely,  that  by  pure  logic,  and  that  by  pertinent 
analogies. 

If  the  former  be  applicable  to  a  point  in  ques- 
tion, it  is  the  more  convincing,  indeed  its  verdict 
is  final.  But  its  use  is  absolutely  conditional  on 
knowledge  or  admission  of  all  the  facts  in  the 
case.  Otherwise,  it  is  never  final,  and  seldom  to 
be  trusted,  the  danger  of  error,  through  some 
slight  technical  or  verbal  flaws,  being  altogether 
too  great.  There  are  some  truths  which  could 
not  be  proved  by  any  human  language.  We 
have  but  to  read  any  history  of  philosophy  to  be 
aware  that  these  statements  are  true. 

87 


88  The  Great  Mystery 

The  method  by  analogy,  on  the  other  hand,  if 
the  analogies  be  reasonable,  though  its  verdict  is 
never  final,  is  often  convincing,  whether  all,  or 
even  most  of  the  facts  in  the  question  under  dis- 
cussion be  known  or  not.  It  is  for  the  above 
reasons  that  argument  by  analogy  is  the  method 
of  Nature  students  and  scientists  in  general,  the 
world  over,  and  can  be  abandoned  by  such,  only 
when  discussing  subjects  of  which  the  limits  are 
clearly  seen  and  presumably  understood. 

I  would  not  for  one  moment  seem  to  fail  in 
appreciation  of  the  human  intellect,  the  powers 
and  glory  of  which  can  hardly  be  overestimated; 
but  that  it  has  a  limit,  it  would  be  foolishness  to 
deny,  and  its  limit  of  logical  demonstrative  power 
is  within  its  grasp  of  facts.  It  would  seem  as  if, 
above  all  other  fields,  we  might  best  apply  pure 
logic  to  pure  philosophy;  and  yet  we  find  among 
philosophers  every  grade,  for  instance,  of  ideal- 
ist, from  the  all  but  materialist  through  Leibnitz 
with  his  monads,  and  Berkeley  with  his  arche- 
types, to  the  more  modern  idealism  of  Herman 
Lotye  and  the  mysticisms  of  Prof.  T.  H.  Green's 
neo-Hegelian  doctrines;  and  we  have  many  of 
their  representatives  to-day  and  neither  were 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature       89 

these  men,  nor  are  their  followers,  of  mean  mind 
power.  No  two  philosophies  have  ever  been 
shown  to  be  in  perfect  agreement.  They  all  ap- 
pear movable  quantities,  both  as  to  time  pro- 
gressive and  time  present.  What  then  ?  Are 
we  to  give  over  trusting  in  our  mental  powers, 
and  sit  down  to  wait  until  we  have  them  larger  ? 
That  would  be  despair  indeed,  for  in  the  light  of 
what  we  know  of  evolution's  requirements  for 
progress,  we  should  thus  sit,  until  we  became 
monads  once  again. 

Let  us  rather  admit  that,  though  every  fact 
from  the  simplest  to  the  most  involved  be  doubt- 
less capable  of  logical  demonstration,  such  proofs 
are  almost  without  exception,  not  as  yet,  for  us; 
that  neither  we  are  fixed  quantities,  nor  are  our 
surroundings;  that  we  live  and  move  in  an  over- 
lapping series  of  ascending  progresses,  that  we 
can  no  more  prove  by  logic  the  more  involved 
facts  of  Nature  and  its  greater  source,  than  we 
can  put  together  a  watch,  no  part  of  which  is,  as 
yet,  complete,1  or  photograph  the  finished  cathe- 

i  One  might  put  it  partly  together  and  gain  the  trend  of  the 
unfinished  parts,  and  the  probable  function  of  the  whole,  but 
one  could  not  dogmatize  about  the  matter. 


90  The  Great  Mystery 

dral  of  St.  John  the  Divine,  while  yet  it  is  in  proc- 
ess of  building. 

Let  us  reason  as  honestly  as  is  in  us,  and  as 
reasonably  as  our  powers  allow,  and  neither  be 
surprised  nor  disappointed  that  others  from  dif- 
ferent standpoints,  do  not  see  exactly  as  we  do. 
If  there  be  truth  in  what  we  teach,  it  will  be 
established  in  time,  and  if  there  be  no  truth,  let 
us  thank  God  from  the  bottom  of  our  hearts,  that 
it  will  soon  die. 


In  the  following  discussion  1  purpose  to  use 
chiefly  the  method  of  argument  by  analogy. 
We  are  to  deal  with  a  question  of  Nature,  and 
this  is  the  only  method  that  seems  to  me  to 
apply  to  such,  as  viewed  by  the  human  or  any 
other  finite  intellect  Nature  is  progressive,  we 
are  progressive,  both  as  individuals  and  as  a  race. 
We  have  not  all  the  facts  by  a  very  wide  margin 
and  indeed  are  only  beginning  to  classify  those 
we  have.  Nature  is  a  life,  not  a  philosophy,  and 
its  arguments  cannot  be,  for  us,  fixtures.  Could 
they  become  so,  we  should  have  reason  to  de- 
spair, since  stagnation  would  be  our  portion. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature       91 

Analogy  is  the  argument  of  science;  the  very 
word  calls  attention  to  this  fact.  It  is  the  argu- 
ment of  reaching  out,  of  progress — in  chemistry, 
physics,  economics,  sociology,  law,  medicine, 
and  theology.  These  are  movable  quantities,  as 
can  be  shown  from  that  so-called  fixed  science, 
chemistry.  There  was  a  time  when  there  were 
supposed  to  be  but  four  elementary  substances, 
earth,  air,  fire  and  water.  When  I  was  a  college 
student,  there  were  some  sixty-eight  elements 
clearly  demonstrated  to  be  such,  with  seven  or 
eight  more  still  in  doubt.  And  it  is  now  begin- 
ning to  look  as  if  there  might  be  but  one  element 
after  all,  and  that  perhaps  a  non-condensed  form 
of  all  the  formerly  so-called  elements,  named  by 
chemists  "protyle."  What  are  we  to  think? 
What  of  logical  proofs  based  on  such  movable 
foundations  as  these  ? 

Boyle  and  Lavoisier  were  those  to  insist  that  the  ele- 
ments were  independent  in  their  nature  and  ultimate. 
There  are  some  chemists,  however,  who  propose  the 
view  that  the  elements  consist  of  one  fundamental 
matter  in  various  stages  of  condensation,  and  that  the 
stage  is  dependent  on  the  temperature,  the  higher  the 
temperature  the  less  being  the  condensation.  In  1815 


92  The  Great  Mystery 

Prout  suggested  that  this  fundamental  matter  was  hy- 
drogen, but  the  suggestion  was  shown  to  be  inaccurate 
by  the  work  of  Stas  and  others.  At  present  the  funda- 
mental matter,  called  "Protyle,"  without  any  further 
attempt  being  made  to  characterize  it,  is,  so  to  speak, 
placed  lower  down  in  the  scale  than  hydrogen  which 
is  itself  regarded  as  protyle  in  a  definite  advanced 
stage  of  transition.  Crookes  regards  all  elements  as 
having  been  gradually  evolved  from  this  protyle ;  the 
heavier  elements,  such  as  bismuth,  thorium  and  ura- 
nium being  the  younger  or  more  recent  species ;  the 
lighter  elements,  such  as  lithium,  boron,  etc.,  being 
the  older.1 

Again, — anatomy  is  a  fixed  science,  we  say. 
There  was  a  time  when  muscle,  bone,  fat,  etc., 
were  anatomical  units  to  argue  from,  then  there 
were  cells  of  homogeneous  protoplasm,  then  these 
cells  had  nuclei,  then  again  nucleoli,  then  there 
were  polar  bodies,  chromatin,  centrosomes,  and 
a  host  more  of  parts, — and  now  a  whole  series 
of  most  complicated  and  absorbingly  interesting 
processes  have  their  seat  within  these  protoplas- 
mic once-called  units. 

A   second    reason    for  the  adoption   of   this 

1  (Information  supplied  through  the  courtesy  of  Dr.  John 
Marshall.) 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature       93 

method  lies  in  the  fact  of  its  applicability  to  gen- 
eralizations. This  follows  from  what  I  have  al- 
ready said  of  it.  The  more  we  try  to  include, 
and  the  larger  our  problem,  the  less  trustworthy 
is  the  other  method.  Such  generalizers  as  Dar- 
win, Huxley,  Wallace,  Drummond,  Fiske,  and  a 
host  of  others  have  employed  it  with  such  suc- 
cess and  power  to  convince,  as  makes  it  un- 
necessary for  me  to  do  more  than  instance  their 
work. 

And  thirdly,  it  does  not  depend  for  its  life  on 
dim  shades  of  words  and  hair-breadths  of  inter- 
pretation. In  it,  we  do  not  arrange  our  blocks 
as  some  other  children  do,  in  serpentine  chains, 
so  that,  if  one  falls,  the  whole  is  lost.  We 
rather  range  them  side  by  side,  and  though  one 
or  a  dozen  fall,  the  truth  may  remain. 

Fourthly,  it  is  the  method  that  in  these  latter 
days,  is  proving  the  persuasive  argument  par  ex- 
cellence. Is  there  any  one  who  will  stake  his  all 
on  one  kind  of  idealism  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
others  ?  I,  for  one,  will  not.  Or  will  any  one 
be  willing  to  live  on  the  conclusions  of  that 
marvelous  logician,  Mr.  Sidgewick,  as  set  forth 
in  the  Methods  of  Ethics?  I  cannot  live  by 


94  The  Great  Mystery 

them,  but  I  can  live  by  a  good  and  reasonable 
analogy.  I  can  see  light  and  live  by  the  lilies  and 
the  sparrows. 

Finally,  if  an  argument  by  analogy  be  not  true, 
or  only  partly  so,  it  will  soon  betray  itself.  If 
the  method  be  used  incorrectly  or  too  closely, 
the  fact  will  soon  be  revealed  by  honest  criticism, 
and  whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  it  will  not  be 
lost  by  sifting.  Mr.  Drummond  used  the  method 
in  both  of  his  Nature  books;  in  the  second,  al- 
most without  error,  in  the  first,  with  some  mis- 
takes in  the  matter  of  overstretched  analogies. 
It  is  recorded  in  his  biography  by  G.  A.  Smith, 
p.  154,  et  seq.,  that  in  later  years  Drummond 
recognized  these  fallacies,  and  freely  acknowl- 
edged them,  and  said  in  1890,  "  I  would  write  the 
book  differently  if  I  were  to  do  it  again,  etc.," 
yet  the  truth  in  the  book  remains,  and  some  of 
its  inspiring  analogies  will  remain  with  us  for- 
ever. 

That  there  is  truth  and  much  truth  in  what  I 
purpose  to  discuss  in  this  study,  I  have  no  man- 
ner of  doubt.  And  I  earnestly  desire  to  know 
that  others  see  the  same  light  as  I,  on  the  path 
that  we  shall  follow  together.  Yet,  though  I 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature       95 

believe,  I  desire  to  prove  nothing.  If  there  be 
truth  in  what  I  glean,  and  offer,  you  will  see  it. 
You  will  know  it  as  you  always  know  truth, 
by  its  beauty,  by  its  simplicity,  its  reasonableness 
and  its  adaptability,  by  its  persuasiveness,  its 
universality,  and  by  your  willingness  to  trust  it. 
You  will  know  it,  because  it  is  truth,  and  God  is 
Truth,  and  you  are  an  image.  We  have,  thanks 
to  God  and  His  army  of  seekers,  given  up,  or 
nearly  so,  cramming  our  views  down  other  peo- 
ple's throats  as  truth.  As  through  republican 
ideals  we  are  learning  slowly  to  be,  each  and 
every  one  of  us,  a  good  governor,  so  by  seeking 
each  for  himself,  we  shall  learn  together  to  know 
truth,  which  is  freedom. 


Ill 

Life  and  its  Factors 


ORGANIC  life  has  been  defined  by  Mr.  Lewes 
("History  of  Philosophy,"  p.  80)  as  the  "con- 
nexus  of  the  organic  activities,"  and  though  there 
have  appeared  many  attempts  to  be  more  defini- 
tive, I  know  of  no  result  that  is  less  involved  or 
more  satisfactory  than  this  one.  It  seems  to  be 
a  true  definition  as  far  as  it  goes. 

Of  these  activities  of  organic  life,  it  is  well 
known  that  there  are  two  which  seem  to  em- 
brace all  others,  and  to  be  essential  to  the  exist- 
ence of  all  such  life,  and  these  are  nutrition  and 
reproduction.  And  these  two  factors  are  shown 
by  Mr.  Drummond1  ("The  Ascent  of  Man,"  p.  220, 
et  seq.)  to  have  been  intimately  associated  with, 
and  bound  respectively  to  the  two  great  labors 

1  I  have  given  in  the  preface  my  reasons  and  my  apology  for 
quoting   somewhat   frequently  and  at  some  length  from  the 
writings  of  Mr.  Drummond,  and  of  one  or  two  others. 
96 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature       97 

of  evolution,  namely,  the  struggle  for  life,  and 
the  struggle  for  the  life  of  others.  The  writer 
then  goes  on  to  show  that  the  exercise  of  these 
two  activities  "in  plants,  and  largely  in  animals, 
sums  up  the  work  of  life.  The  object  of  Nutri- 
tion is  to  secure  the  life  of  the  individual;  the 
object  of  Reproduction  is  to  secure  the  life  of  the 
Species.  These  two  objects  are  thus  wholly  dif- 
ferent. The  first  has  a  purely  personal  end;  its 
attention  is  turned  inwards;  it  exists  only  for  the 
present.  The  second  in  a  greater  or  less  degree 
is  impersonal;  its  attention  is  turned  outwards; 
it  lives  for  the  future.  One  of  these  objects,  in 
other  words,  is  Self-regarding;  the  other  is  Other- 
regarding.  .  .  .  Selfishness  and  unselfishness 
are  two  supreme  words  in  the  moral  life.  The 
first,  even  in  physical  Nature,  is  accompanied  by 
the  second.  In  the  very  fact  that  one  of  the  two 
main  springs  of  life  is  Other-regarding,  there  lies 
a  prophecy,  a  suggestion,  of  the  day  of  Altruism. 
In  organizing  the  physiological  mechanism  of 
Reproduction,  in  plants  and  animals,  Nature  was 
already  laying  wires  on  which,  one  far-off  day, 
the  currents  of  all  higher  things  might  travel." 
("The  Ascent  of  Man,"  p.  221.)  And  later, 


98  The  Great  Mystery 

"  Taken  prophetically,  the  function  of  Reproduc- 
tion is  as  much  greater  than  the  function  of  Nu- 
trition as  the  Man  is  greater  than  the  Animal,  as 
the  Soul  is  higher  than  the  Body,  as  Cooperation 
is  greater  than  Competition,  as  Love  is  stronger 
than  Hate.  ("  The  Ascent  of  Man,"  p.  222.) 

We  clearly  see  that  there  are  two  great  factors  of 
organic  life,  Nutrition  and  Reproduction,  founda- 
tion stones  of  the  body  and  of  all  that  may  be 
above  it,  and,  as  Mr.  Drummond  has  demon- 
strated, certainly  the  latter  of  these,  Reproduc- 
tion, is  eternal,  altruistic  (especially  in  all  its 
higher  manifestations),  and  unlimited. 

It  is  somewhat  difficult  to  see  why  Mr.  Drum- 
mond should  have  seen  fit  to  relegate  almost 
without  proof  the  universal  function  of  nutrition 
to  a  place  so  hopelessly  inferior  to  that  of  repro- 
duction as  to  decree  that  it  is  mortal,  self-cen- 
tring and  limited.  It  is  true  that  in  its  origin  it 
is  self-regarding,  and  for  the  preservation  of  the 
individual;  while  the  function  of  reproduction  is 
at  least  feebly  altruistic  from  its  inception ;  yet  it 
is  equally  evident  that  in  its  higher  development, 
nutrition  takes  on  a  distinctly  altruistic  form,  and 
only  in  this  form  does  it  play  its  most  important 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature       99 

role,  in  the  evolution  of  the  Father.  It  was  not 
in  the  providing  of  food  for  himself  that  the  Father 
was  made,  but  in  the  provision  for  his  mate  and 
offspring. 

It  seems  evident  too,  that  in  the  higher  life, 
mental,  moral  and  spiritual,  there  is  to  be  found 
a  pretty  clear  analogue  to  nutrition  in  Truth,  its 
quest  and  its  provision.  As  Phillips  Brooks  has 
said  and  as  others  have  thought,1  "Truth  and  the, 
search  for  truth  are  the  great  food  and  discipline 
of  human  nature."  (Sermons.  Phillips  Brooks.) 

We  shall  have  little  occasion  again  to  refer  at 
this  time  to  the  factor  Nutrition,  as  it  has  but 
slight  bearing  on  our  subject,  beyond  that  to 
which  attention  has  already  been  called. 

If  we  should  here  adopt  Mr.  Drummond's  view 
which  refers  the  self-seeking  function  to  maleness  and 
the  other-seeking  function  to  femaleness,  we  should  but 
emphasize  and  add  strength  to  our  attempt  to  demon- 
strate the  dependence  of  all  life,  low  and  high,  upon 
the  family  relationships.  But  although  Mr.  Drum- 

1  "  Truth  is  the  soul's  proper  food,  untruth  is  its  poison.  .  .  . 
The  soul  takes  its  food  by  believing.  .  .  .  Some  kinds  of 
truth  are  like  some  kinds  of  food,  not  very  nourishing.  .  .  . 
Truth  about  God  is  the  very  Bread  of  Life  to  our  souls." 
(Letter  of  E.  M.  J.,  1871.) 


loo  The  Great  Mystery 

mond's  standpoint  undoubtedly  has  firm  ground  be- 
neath it,  I  have  not  seen  fit  to  lay  stress,  here,  on  his 
division  of  function,  for  three  reasons ;  First :  I  think 
that  he  has  but  upturned  the  surface  ground  about  the 
mystery  of  sex ;  and  that  this  root  lies  deeply  buried 
in  the  ideal  of  life  itself;  that  the  distinction  of  sex 
lies  even  deeper  than  the  functions  of  the  same ;  and 
that  this  performance  of  function  lies  in  a  male  or  fe- 
male way  of  doing  things,  rather  than  in  a  difference 
of  things  done,  different  though  the  things  done  cer- 
tainly are.  This  is  more  in  accordance  with  Mr. 
Drummond's  own  theory  of  involution.  Second  :  He 
does  not  take  sufficient  note  of  the  part  of  the  male  in 
reproduction,  for  besides  the  fact  that  the  male  is  ever 
essential  to  reproduction  of  species,  in  the  germ  cell 
the  male  element  is  probably  more  strictly  reproductive 
than  the  female,  which  is  rather  devoted  to  growth 
and  nutrition,  while  in  the  womb  and  during  lactation, 
the  entire  nutrition  of  the  offspring  is  the  work  of  the 
female.  But  it  is  true  that  at  no  time  are  the  func- 
tions of  male  and  female  the  same,  and  that  in  the 
higher  reaches,  the  divisions  are  probably  as  Mr. 
Drummond  has  drawn  them.  Third :  The  matter  is 
not  yet  clear,  and  though  it  may  be  sufficiently  so,  to 
hold  as  a  theory,  or  part  of  a  theory,  it  is  not  so  con- 
cluded as  to  warrant  me  in  using  it  as  a  basis  for  a 
secondary  demonstration. 

Of  the  other  factor  of  all  life,  Reproduction,  I 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      101 

shall  have  much  to  say  in  the  sections  to  follow, 
and  shall  but  make  this  note  here,  that,  as  to  the 
production  of  spirit,  the  only  evidence  which  Na- 
ture seems  to  afford  us,  aside  from  the  facts  in- 
volved in  the  establishment  of  the  major  question 
we  are  discussing,  have  bearing  upon  the  pro- 
duction of  the  human  spirit.  And  this  evidence, 
though  of  a  negative,  rather  than  a  positive  char- 
acter, must  point  the  thoughtful  mind  to  the 
inference  that  our  spiritual  life  is  begotten  through 
reproduction,  in  an  analogous  manner  to  the  life 
of  our  bodies.  It  is  hardly  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  souls  should  exist  as  stored  up  entities,  or 
come  into  being,  as  it  were,  through  special  crea- 
tion or  intervention.  Reason  and  hosts  of  ana- 
logies would  lead  us  rather  to  believe  that  spiritual 
natures  are  born  of  parent  spiritual  natures,  as,  and 
in  conjunction  with  the  physical  natures  with 
which  they  are  so  closely  associated.  I  do  not 
say  that  this  is  proved;  but  I  do  maintain  that, 
as  far  as  we  know  from  Nature  about  the  birth  of 
spirit,  we  are  led  to  infer  that  spirit  is  reproduced 
from  other  spirit,  or  at  least,  from  dual  parent- 
hood. 
So  far  as  we  know,  all  life  is  from  life,  phys- 


1O2  The  Great  Mystery 

ical  and  spiritual,  and  if  man  or  any  other  have  a 
soul,  Nature  gives  us  no  other  explanation  of  its 
origin  than  that  it  comes  by  birth,  by  heredity. 
We  can  admit  the  possibility  of  other  modes  of 
spiritual  production,  as  we  can  conceive  of  a 
monad  existence,  (a  different  kind  of  protoplasm 
being  granted,  and  ignoring  the  question  of 
nutritive  supply),  developing  through  ages  into 
a  higher  type  of  life,  without  reproduction,  and 
of  a  spiritual  development  accompanying  the 
same;  but  Nature  gives  us  no  more  grounds  for 
the  one  than  the  other. 

Thus  far  we  have  spoken  of  reproduction  as  a 
universally  found  relationship,  that  is,  a  relation- 
ship found  throughout  life,  in  its  simplest  form, 
consisting  of  two  constituents,  namely,  begetter- 
hood  and  begottenhood,  or  by  more  euphonious 
names,  parenthood  and  childhood.  So  far  as  we 
can  see,  so  far  as  the  eyes  of  science  have  ever 
reached,  no  life  has  ever  appeared  which  has  not 
shown  the  distinct  presence  of  these  two  re- 
lationships. From  monad  to  man,  and  through 
every  intermediate  ramification,  these  two  re- 
lationships appear,  and  they  never  fail  to  appear, 
if  we  can  get  close  enough  to  see  them. 


1  NEED  hardly  say  that  this  universal  relation- 
ship, spoken  of  in  the  last  section,  as  a  dual  one 
of  parenthood  and  childhood,  is  in  reality  a  triple 
relationship,  consisting  of  a  dual  parentage  and 
an  offspring  element.  But  it  is  quite  possible 
that  all  of  us  do  not  appreciate  the  universality  of 
this  principle  of  dual  parentage,  as  revealed  by 
the  scientific  researches  of  this  century,  and  es- 
pecially by  those  of  the  last  ten  years.  It  was 
understood  by  men  of  old,  that  the  fact  of  sex 
was  an  important  world  principle,  and  this  ap- 
preciation was  registered  in  numberless  ways,  of 
which  one  was  the  peopling  of  all  Nature,  by  the 
Greeks  and  others,  with  male  and  female  spiritual 
life.  In  a  later  age,  it  was  discovered  that  every 
flower  of  the  field,  and  every  forest  tree,  was 
male  or  female,  or  both.  Then  the  scientists 

103 


104  The  Great  Mystery 

demonstrated  that  every  individual  having  life  in 
itself,  animal  or  vegetable,  is  male  or  female  or 
both.  And  perhaps  the  greatest  triumph  of  the 
anatomists  of  to-day  is  their  revelation  to  us  that, 
without  doubt,  every  living  cell  in  every  living 
organism  in  all  nature  has  sex.  Not  even  in  cell 
life,  do  we  find  anywhere  in  nature,  reproduction 
without  dual  parenthood.1  From  the  lowest 
unorganized  cell  to  the  highest  life  expressing  it- 
self through  organism,  from  the  farthest  past  to 
the  present  day,  we  find  no  trace  of  life  without 
sex.  They  are  inseparable  and  coexistent,  the 
one,  the  foundation  of  the  other  ;  it  would  seem 
as  though  the  very  God,  from  whom  all  life  has 
come,  knows  no  life  without  it. 

We  have  alluded  to  two  forms  of  dual  life,  that 
in  which  one  organism  is  in  possession  of  both 
elements,  and  that  in  which  each  element  is  found 
in  a  so-called  separate  organism.  The  latter  has 
proved  itself  the  higher  type  since  it  has  resulted 
in  nature's  highest  products  and  God's  most 

1 1  have  before  me  a  letter  dated  October  25,  1900,  from 
Dr.  George  A.  Piersol,  America's  deservedly  best  known 
embryologist,  which  outlines  for  me  the  very  latest  and  soundest 
views  on  this  subject,  and  satisfies  me  of  the  correctness  of  these 
conclusions. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      105 

glorious  works,  the  human  Father,  the  human 
Mother,  and  the  human  Child.  But  we  are  speak- 
ing for  the  present,  of  the  sexes. 

Now  in  the  lowest  forms  of  life  in  which  there 
is  reproduction  through  dual  parenthood  resident 
in  the  same  organism,  these  elements  find  them- 
selves placed  in  close  proximity,  and  unite  by 
some  as  yet  undefined  affinity,  and  their  union 
results  in  a  cleavage  or  a  budding  which  is  a  divi- 
sion of  the  whole  organism,  the  identity  of  which 
is  practically  lost.  Sometimes  this  identity  is  re- 
tained for  a  while,  as  a  parent  or  mother  cell,  to 
be,  later  on,  lost  as  above.  This  is  the  lowest 
form  of  organic  life.  In  the  next,  in  which  the 
sexes  are  already  manifested  as  separate  organ- 
isms, there  is  not  yet  any  married  life  at  all,  nor 
indeed  does  this  appear  through  many  higher 
grades  of  the  relationship.  In  these,  we  have  no 
least  expression  of  individuality,  of  parenthood, 
or  of  any  of  the  beauties  which  this  relationship 
presents  in  the  higher  types  of  animal  life.  The 
entire  life  of  these  species  seems  to  be  devoted  to 
the  one  worthy  object  of  reproducing  their  kind, 
sometimes  perchance  placing  their  offspring  amid 
surroundings  suitable  for  future  development. 


106  The  Great  Mystery 

The  relationship  has  no  restriction  except  that  of 
species.  There  is  no  married  life,  as  the  parents 
have  no  relations  beyond  the  moment,  and  they 
never  know,  nor  do  they  even  live  to  see  their 
offspring  alive. 

Of  the  higher  examples  of  these  grades  of  life, 
we  might  mention  one  well  known  to  all  of  us, 
the  common  house-fly.  From  this  stage  upward 
to  the  mountain  heights  of  the  more  strictly 
monogamous  mammal  lives,  there  is  every  finest 
grade  of  progress.  There  is  the  wolf-spider  who 
watches  over  her  young  for  a  time,  but  may  be 
eaten  by  them  in  return.  There  are  the  bees  who 
guard  their  young  most  carefully  for  a  time,  and 
maintain  a  sort  of  tribal,  polyandrous  relation- 
ship. There  are  certain  wild  fowl,  who  live  in 
polygamous  communities,  and  among  whom  the 
young  are  cared  for  throughout  their  short  child- 
hood; and  the  antelopes,  whose  polygamy  is  more 
restricted,  and  among  whom  the  period  of  devel- 
opment is  of  longer  duration.  Still  higher  in  the 
scale,  we  find  many  birds  who  live  faithfully  in 
pairs,  for  a  season,  and  care  well  for  their  off- 
spring, until  they  attain  maturity.  And  finally, 
there  are  yet  higher  orders  of  wild  birds,  and 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      107 

animals,  as  the  lion  and  the  eagle,  who  will  abide 
with  one  mate  faithfully,  and  for  life,  and  rear  up 
their  young,  until  the  need  for  their  care  ceases, 
through  the  physical  maturity  of  their  offspring.1 

As  we  climb  the  mountain  peaks,  the  air  grows 
purer,  the  light  more  dazzling.  A  higher  ideal 
of  marriage  rises,  like  the  sun  over  the  Jungfrau; 
wedded  life  as  we  see  it  to-day  in  America,  Eng- 
land, Germany;  the  life  toward  and  beyond 
which  Christ  pointed  so  long  ago,  when  as  yet, 
Nero  and  the  Maximian  laws  were  possible  among 
men.  This  life  is  as  far  above  that  of  even  the 
eagles  and  the  lions,  as  the  sun  is  above  the 
mountain-tops;  and  its  glory  is  its  spiritual  love, 
where,  the  body  being  under  arrest,  one  man  and 
one  woman  shall  live  together  in  faithfulness  of 
body,  mind,  and  soul,  so  long  as  they  both  shall 
live,  and  their  children  shall  be  theirs  for  life. 

But  if,  with  a  smoked  glass,  we  gaze  at  the 
sun,  we  see  many  a  spot  on  its  bright  face;  and 
such,  alas!  there  are  on  the  fair  glory  of  wedded 
life  in  our  land  to-day.  Such  are  the  black  spots 

1  "  Whenever  man  does  not  interfere,  monogamy  seems  to  be 
the  general  order  of  nature  with  all  higher  organisms." 
("  Sexes  throughout  Nature,"  Blackwell,  p.  143.) 


io8  The  Great  Mystery 

of  individual  impurity,  the  dark  shadows  of 
Mormonism,  the  shameful  stains  of  our  divorce 
laws,1  and  of  polygamy  stereotyped  in  Sulu. 
"Suns  of  the  world  may  stain,  when  heaven's 
sun  staineth!"  But  there  is  a  light  above  the 
brightness  of  the  sun,  there  are  possibilities  for 
human  marriage  of  which  the  poet-prophet 
spake: 

"  Then  comes  the  statelier  Eden  back  to  men : 
Then  reign  the  world's  great  bridals,  chaste  and  calm : 
Then  springs  the  crowning  race  of  humankind." 

1  In  San  Francisco  there  is  an  average  of  one  divorce  to 
every  six  or  less  marriages.  And  in  the  State  of  California, 
according  to  the  Outlook  of  November  24,  1900,  "  Divorce 
in  that  State  is  allowed  for  cruel  and  inhuman  treatment, 
and  under  this  clause,  according  to  Mr.  Meriwether,  divorces 
have  been  allowed  to  the  husband,  in  one  case,  because  his  wife 
failed  to  sew  buttons  on  his  vest ;  in  another,  because  she  would 
not  get  up  in  the  morning  nor  call  him  in  the  morning ;  and  to 
the  wife  because  the  husband  did  not  come  home  until  ten 
o'clock  at  night  and  kept  his  wife  awake  talking  sometimes 
until  midnight,  etc."  But  with  the  Outlook,  we  trust  that  in 
the  actions  of  the  "  Episcopal  Committee  "  we  see  the  dawning 
of  a  widespread  reaction  "  in  the  public  sentiment  of  this 
country  against  that  freedom  of  divorce  which  has  been  one  of 
the  most  injurious  and  dishonoring  features  of  our  national 
life." 


V 

Man  and  Woman,  Equal  and  yet  Diverse 


AT  this  point,  let  me  say  a  word  or  two  with 
regard  to  the  comparative  rank  of  the  sexes  in 
the  natural  economy,  and  to  their  diversities;  not 
by  way  of  proof,  but  in  review  of  certain  points 
which  have  been  recently  all  but  established,  and 
which  are,  at  this  time,  generally  accepted  as 
truth  on  these  subjects. 

The  author  of  Sexuality  throughout  Nature, 
A.  B.  Blackwell,  some  years  ago  traced  very  care- 
fully the  relative  positions  of  the  sexes,  from 
their  lowest  manifestations,  (as  then  recognized) 
through  all  nature  to  mankind,  and  came  to  the 
conclusion,  that  from  the  foundation  up,  the 
sexes  are  equally  important  to,  as  well  as  equally 
advanced  in,  the  economy  of  nature;  that  physi- 
ologically (physically  and  mentally),  woman  is 

109 


llo  The  Great  Mystery 

fitted  equally  with  man,  to  take  the  highest  places 
in  the  reaches  of  evolution ;  that  any  seeming  lim- 
itation in  woman's  mental  power  is  but  a  tardi- 
ness or  lagging,  of  short  durability,  and  brought 
about  in  the  comparatively  recent  centuries  of  the 
world's  progress,  through  the  arbitrary,  force- 
born  assumption  of  superiority  by  man,  a  neces- 
sary, but  temporary  state  of  affairs,  and  in  the 
immediate  future  to  become  a  thing  of  the  past; 
that  even  this  superiority  is  rather  assumed  than 
demonstrated,  and  will  at  once  betray  its  un- 
soundness,  when  equality  is  recognized  and, 
through  co-education  and  other  measures,  dem- 
onstrated. I  trust  that  I  have  not  misrepre- 
sented the  author's  conclusions  by  so  con- 
cisely sketching  them.  She  also  thinks  that 
science, — chemistry,  physiology,  etc., — analysis 
in  other  words,  will  prove  the  equal  viability 
of  the  sexes. 

Now,  since  the  appearance  of  this  work,  an 
immense  amount  of  time  and  attention  have 
been  given  to  the  matter;  comparative  mental 
anatomy  and  physiology  have  been  developed 
to  a  high  degree  of  usefulness;  psychology  has 
done  much;  education,  and  especially  pedagogy, 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      ill 

sociology  and  a  host  of  other  lines  of  investiga- 
tion have  added  their  evidence;  and  the  evidence 
of  life,  as  we  see  it,  is  becoming  plainer,  as  we 
learn  to  read.  The  whole  is  crystallizing  into  a 
diamond  of  truth,  whose  point  is  gradually  pene- 
trating even  the  most  leathery  among  us,  the 
truth  that  woman  balances  man  in  the  economy 
of  nature,  as  a  golden  pound  a  silver,  on  the 
finest  scales, — or  as  one-half  of  the  needle  in  a 
ship's  compass,  the  other.  And,  although  there 
are  still  many  who  do  not  care  to  acknowledge 
this  truth,  most  of  such  are  to  be  found,  I  think, 
in  China  or  the  Ottoman  Empire.  One  of  our 
most  famous  European  anatomists,  it  is  true, 
demonstrated  that  the  average  woman's  brain 
weighs  slightly  less  than  the  average  man's,  and 
drew  sage  conclusions  therefrom;  but  at  his  own 
post-mortem  examination,  it  was  shown  that  his 
own  brain  weighed  decidedly  less  than  his  aver- 
age for  women's;  so  that  the  scientist  would 
probably  modify  certain  of  his  conclusions  if  he 
could,  especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
anatomists  of  to-day  have  paved  the  way  for 
him. 
It  seems  almost  unnecessary  to  have  said  even 


1 1 2  The  Great  Mystery 

this  much  to  show  the  equality  of  the  sexes, 
which  are  both  as  indispensable  to  life  as  are  the 
two  eyes  to  binocular  vision.  If  two  factors  are 
necessary  to  prolong  the  life  of  which  each  is  a 
part,  it  goes  without  saying  that  neither  can  suc- 
cessfully crowd  the  other  out  of  existence,  with- 
out self-destruction.  Neither  sex  can  therefore, 
by  any  possibility,  have  more  competitive  vital- 
ity-power than  the  other.  Such  a  state  of  affairs 
would  at  once,  compel  degeneration. 

With  regard  to  the  child,  I  do  not  think  that 
any  one  will  question  the  statement  that  in  na- 
ture, it  is  the  equal  of  its  parents.  (Of  course,  I 
am  speaking  of  the  racial  child,  not  of  the  indi- 
vidual whose  calibre  may  be  affected  by  acci- 
dent.) The  child  takes  on  the  nature  of  the  par- 
ent and,  except  for  the  minute  increment  of 
evolution,  is  its  equal.  And  while  on  this  sub- 
ject, I  may  say  that  even  this  slightest  superiority 
is  partially  negated  by  the  fact  that  the  parent 
in  turn,  is,  to  an  equal  degree,  superior  to  the 
grandparent.  Also,  I  will  say,  that  in  the  ideal, 
after  which,  I  believe,  human  nature  to  be 
planned  in  the  perfected  relationship,  the  child 
is  not  in  any  sense  superior  or  inferior  to  the 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      ]  13 

parent,1  for  in  that,  the  factor  of  evolution  is 
eliminated,  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  (the  sense 
of  perfecting).  We  must  also  realize  that  the 
duties  of  obedience,  etc.,  which  the  child  owes 
to  its  parents,  are  not  the  expression  of  inequality 
in  nature,  but  of  difference  of  function. 

Now,  to  return  to  woman;  though  she  is  the 
absolute  equal  of  man,  she  is  also  absolutely  di- 
verse from  him.  She  is  his  equal  in  rank,  she  is 
his  complement  in  nature.  Or  more  definitely 
still,  she  and  he  are  balancing  complements  in 
human  nature,  and,  the  third  component,  child, 
being  added,  make  up  human  nature.  There 
have  been  many  demonstrations  of  this  fact,  and 
from  many  standpoints,  of  which  the  most  con- 
clusive and  satisfying  is  that  of  Mr.  Drummond 
in  those  chapters  of  the  Ascent  of  Man,  in  which 
he  traces  the  progress  of  the  race  through  sex, 
and  the  evolution  of  the  mother  and  father.  No 
one  has  done  this  so  beautifully,  or  understood 
the  question  so  thoroughly  as  he.  And  what  are 
his  evidences  from  nature?  That  from  their 

1 "  The  child  is  the  climax  and  culmination  of  all  God's  crea- 
tion, and  to  answer  the  question  '  What  is  a  child  ? '  is  to  ap- 
proach the  still  greater  question — 'What  is  the  Creator  and 
Giver  of  Life  ? '  "—Parker, 


114  The  Great  Mystery 

foundation  upward,  the  sexes  have  been  working 
at  the  same  general  problem,  but  at  opposite 
sides  of  it.  They  have  worked  more  and  more 
together,  as  to  the  problem,  but  with  ever 
specializing  instruments,  and  at  ever  specializing 
work.  The  more  they  work,  the  more  they 
diverge,  and  yet,  as  the  hands  in  a  factory,  the 
more  absolutely  indispensable  they  become  to 
each  other.  In  the  very  nature  of  their  callings, 
they  must  ever  become  more  indispensably  diver- 
gent. 

Hermaphroditism  is  unnatural  and  a  sign  of  degen- 
eracy in  the  individual,  or  of  stagnation  in  the  species. 
A  womanish  man  is  an  abhorrence,  a  mannish  woman 
is  a  horror.  A  man  may  be  brave  and  a  woman  may 
be  brave.  Each  may  be  true,  and  each  may  love. 
But  each  will  do  so  in  the  way  that  belongs  to  his  or 
her  nature,  and  man  is  as  different  from  woman  as  the 
ocean  from  the  shore,  as  the  sun  at  noon,  from  the 
starry  splendor  of  the  summer  night,  as  Thackeray 
from  George  Eliot,  as  Robert  Browning  from  Elizabeth, 
as  a  father  from  a  mother,  as  a  man  from  his  own  wife. 

"That  cleavage,  therefore,  which  began  in  a 
merely  physical  region,  is  now  seen  to  extend 
into  the  psychical  realm,  and  ends  by  supply- 
ing the  world  with  two  great  and  forever  sepa- 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      115 

rate  types.  No  efforts,  or  explanations,  or 
expostulations  can  ever  break  down  that  dis- 
tinction between  maleness  and  femaleness,  or 
make  it  possible  to  believe  that  they  were  not 
destined  from  the  first  of  time  to  play  a  different 
part  in  human  history.  Male  and  female  never  have 
been  and  never  will  be  the  same.  They  are 
different  in  origin;  they  have  traveled  to  their 
destinations  by  different  routes;  they  have  had 
different  ends  in  view."  ("  Ascent  of  Man," 
p.  256.) 

"  For  woman  is  not  undevelopt  man, 

But  diverse  ;  could  we  make  her  as  the  man, 

Sweet  Love  were  slain;  his  dearest  bond  is  this, 

Not  like  to  like,  but  like  in  difference. 

Yet  in  the  long  years  liker  must  they  grow ; 

The  man  be  more  of  woman,  she  of  man  ; 

He  gain  in  sweetness  and  in  moral  height, 

Nor  lose  the  wrestling  thews  that  throw  the  world; 

She,  mental  breadth,  nor  fail  in  childward  care, 

Nor  lose  the  childlike  in  the  larger  mind ; 

Till  at  the  last,  she  set  herself  to  man, 

Like  perfect  music  unto  noble  words. 

And  so  these  twain,  upon  the  skirts  of  Time, 

Sit  side  by  side,  full-summ'd  in  all  their  powers, 

Dispensing  harvest,  sowing  the  To-be, 

Self-reverent  each  and  reverencing  each, 

Distinct  in  individualities, 

But  like  each  other  ev'n  as  those  who  love." 


VI 

The  Unit  of  Humanity 


IN  seeking  to  find  what  there  may  be  in  God 
which  stands  as  prototype  to  human  life  or  any 
phase  thereof,  it  will  be  well  to  know  to  what 
simple  terms  we  can  reduce  this  human  life,  for 
all  that  Nature  has  ever  taught  men  of  God  has 
been  on  broad  and  simple  lines.  Let  us  then  see 
for  a  moment  if  we  are  able  to  find  a  unit  of 
humanity,  some  simplest  representation  of  it, 
which  yet  will  leave  out  no  essential  part. 
Some  such  reduction  to  simplest  terms,  many  of 
us  think  we  find  in  the  story  of  Eden,  in  which 
we  still  believe  we  see  more  meaning  than  in 
any  mere  "myth"  that  ever  a  race  invented  for 
us  to  dub  "folk-lore." 

What  is  the  unit  of  humanity?  What  is  a 
unit  ?  In  mathematics,  a  unit  is  the  smallest 
known  determinate  quantity,  by  the  constant 
repetition  of  which,  any  other  quantity  of  the 

116 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      1 1 7 

same  kind  is  measured.  In  chemistry,  a  unit  is 
a  molecule,  the  smallest  possible  portion  of  a 
substance  into  which  it  may  supposably  be 
divided,  without  destroying  the  identity  of  the 
substance.  In  other  words,  and  in  general  then, 
a  unit  is  the  smallest  factor  of  anything,  which 
yet  lacks  no  essential  other  than  repetition. 
What  is  this  factor  in  humanity  ?  A  man  ? 
Surely  not,  for  a  million  million  men  would  never 
make  humanity,  nor  a  million  million  women. 
What  then  ?  A  man  and  a  woman  ?  No,  not 
even  these.  Two  essentials  are  yet  lacking,  the 
only  possible  bond  which  represents  the  reason 
for  their  union,  and  the  only  factor  which  stands 
for  human  progress.  Both  these  the  child  sup- 
plies. The  unit  of  humanity  is  the  family  and 
nothing  less  and  nothing  more.  Divide  it,  and 
humanity  is  lost  to  view.  Multiply  it,  and  noth- 
ing in  all  human  life  will  be  lacking.  Multiply 
it  and  tribes  and  nations  will  appear  and  every- 
thing that  makes  them  such.  Multiply  it  and 
the  love  which  it  begets,  and  the  world  will  teem 
with  love  and  every  human  virtue.  History,  and 
all  anthropology  are  but  composites  of  the  family 
life.  Philanthropy  and  brotherly  love  are  the 


1 18  The  Great  Mystery 

overflow  of  the  love  that  binds  these  three  in 
one.  As  the  unit  of  water  consists  of  two  dis- 
tinct and  purest  hydrogen  atoms,  bound  together 
by  one  of  oxygen,  so  does  that  of  humanity  con- 
sist of  two  distinct  parent  atoms  bound  together 
by  a  child.  The  unit  of  humanity  is  the  family, 
three  elements  in  one,  and  each  is  as  necessary  to 
the  other  two  as  the  three  are  to  life. 

"  There  is  no  such  thing  in  nature  as  a  man,  or  for 
that  matter  as  an  animal,  except  among  the  very  hum- 
blest forms."  (Science  does  not  now  allow  of  even 
this  exception.)  "  Wherever  there  is  a  higher  animal 
there  is  another  animal ;  wherever  there  is  a  savage 
there  is  another  savage — the  other  half  of  him,  the  fe- 
male savage.  This  much  at  least  sex  has  done  for  the 
world — it  has  abolished  the  numeral  one.  Observe,  it 
has  not  merely  discouraged  the  existence  of  one;  it 
has  abolished  the  numeral  one.  The  solitary  animal 
must  die  and  leave  no  successor.  Unsociableness, 
therefore,  is  banished  out  of  the  world  ;  it  has  become 
the  very  condition  of  continued  existence  that  there 
should  be  always  a  family  group,  or  at  least  a  pair." 
(When  speaking  of  the  race  there  cannot  be  said  even 
this  "at  least.")  ("The  Ascent  of  Man,"  p.  244.) 

But  it  may  be  objected  that  the  family  relation- 
ships were  made  for  the  sole  purpose  of  perpetu- 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      1 1 9 

ating  the  race.  That  they  do  perpetuate  the  race 
I  will  admit,  that  they  are  necessary  to  all  life  as 
God  has  made  it,  I  maintain.  The  family  re- 
lationships were  made  to  make  the  race  and  more, 
they  are  the  race.  As  "  Mother  Carey  "  said  and 
laughed,  "Know,  silly  child,  that  any  one  can 
make  things,  if  they  will  take  time  and  trouble 
enough;  but  it  is  not  every  one  who,  like  me,  can 
make  things  make  themselves."  This  is  what 
God  has  done  in  the  evolution  of  the  family. 
But  to  say  that  the  family  was  made  alone  to 
perpetuate  the  race  is  no  more  reasonable  than  to 
say  that  we  read  books  to  pile  them  one  by  one 
upon  our  shelves,  and  not  "for  life " ;  or  that  we 
build  a  church  to  pile  one  stone  upon  another  and 
not  to  worship  God.  Mind  builds  with  an  aim, 
not  for  the  sake  of  building.  It  may  be  that 
some  men  still  work  thus  aimlessly,  the  God  I  see 
in  Nature  never  does  so.  The  grandest  thing  that 
God  has  ever  made  is  the  human  family,  father, 
mother  and  child,  and  this  was  never  made  to  fit 
the  race  it  crowns;  the  race  was  made  to  fit 
God's  great  ideal.  This  is  reason. 

"  To  say  even  that  the  machinery  evolved  him  is  as 
preposterous  as  to  say  of  a  poem  that  the  printing  press 


no  The  Great  Mystery 

made  it.  The  ultimate  problem  is,  Who  made  the 
machine  ?  and  who  thought  the  poem  that  was  to  be 
printed? "  ("The  Ascent  of  Man,"  p.  202.) 

"  To  say  that  the  sex  distinction  is  necessary  to  sus- 
tain the  existence  of  life  in  the  world  is  no  answer, 
since  it  is  at  least  possible  that  life  could  have 
been  kept  up  without  it."  ("The  Ascent  of  Man," 
p.  148.) 

Poets  have  ever  been  prophets  from  before  the 
days  of  David,  or  of  the  writer  of  Jonah. 
(Whether  Jonah  be  poetic  fiction,  or  history,  or 
both,  does  not  affect  the  question.)  And  why  is 
it  so  ?  Is  it  not  because  through  the  closest  com- 
munion with  truth  and  beauty  they  learn  to  feel, 
what  others  must  see,  to  know  ?  Thus  he  who 
wrote  of  Jonah  knew  that  God  was  not  for  Jews 
alone,  but  for  every  one  who  breathed  His  breath 
of  life.  And  David,  that  man  must  some  day 
have  a  spiritual  king  and  saviour.  "  Gird  on  Thy 
sword  upon  Thy  thigh,  O  mighty  One,  Thy  Glory 
and  Thy  Majesty."  (Ps.  xlv.  3.)  And  Job  knew 
that  he  would  some  day  find  his  essential  re- 
deemer. "I  know  that  my  redeemer  liveth." 
(Job  xix.  25.)  And  even  in  this  our  day,  two 
purest  poets  have  prophesied — the  one  of  eternal 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      121 

individuality,  the  other  of  eternal  union.     I  speak 
of  course  of  Browning  and  of  Tennyson. 

Man  will  live  and  rise  by  growing  ever  more 
truly  three  in  one,  and  ever  more  closely  one  in 
three. 


VII 

The  Trends  of  Evolution.     Father,  Mother 
and  Child 


"  One  God,  one  law,1  one  element,8 

And  one  far-off  divine  event,3 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

—  Tennyson. 

IN  consecrating  a  separate  section  to  the  bear- 
ings of  Evolution,  I  have  no  thought  of  divorcing 
it  from  Nature,  of  which  of  course,  it  is  an 
essential  factor,  but  I  have  done  so,  because  its 
bearing  upon  our  problem  is  of  special  sig- 
nificance. 

The  facts  in  the  history  of  human  marriage  are 
innumerable,  and  the  authorities  are  many,  but  in 
Darwin's  Descent  of  Man,  Geddes  and  Thom- 
son's The  Evolution  of  Sex,  Westermarck's 

1  Love.  *  The  family. 

8  The  consummation  of  the  image  of  the  ideals. 
122 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      123 

History  of  Human  Marriage,  Drummond's  As- 
cent of  Man,  and  in  the  works  of  Piersol  and 
other  living  embryologists,  we  find  the  most 
satisfactory  and  suggestive  material  bearing  upon 
the  subject.  I  know  of  no  study  in  Nature  that 
is  more  full  of  interest,  or  more  pregnant  with 
meaning,  more  full  of  promise  or  more  inspiring 
by  its  beauty,  than  this  of  the  origin  and  history 
of  marriage  and  its  place  in  Nature.  I  cannot  go 
into  the  matter  deeply,  for  I  should  be  carried 
away,  or  lose  myself.  It  is  only  necessary  for 
me  to  call  your  attention  again  to  certain  broad 
facts  that  we  have  learned,  especially  from  Mr. 
Drummond  and  Mr.  Fiske,  and  which  are  now 
accepted  in  principle,  and  probably  in  fact,  as 
true. 

From  the  days  of  the  appearance  of  life  on  the 
earth,  evolution  has  been  unceasingly  busy  at  a 
number  of  problems,  which  in  their  present  state, 
show  results  of  her  labors  in  what  are  now 
involved  in  pure  monogamous  marriage,  and 
united  family  life.  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying 
that,  although  these  institutions  are  not  yet,  by 
any  means,  perfected,  they  are  the  highest 
reaches  of  evolution  to  the  present  time,  and 


124  The  Great  Mystery 

their  reason  for  being  is  found  in  that  which  is 
to  follow. 

The  latter  statement  I  have  endeavored  to 
illustrate  in  the  preceding  section;  the  former  is 
clearly  shown  in  Drummond's  Ascent  of  Man. 

Evolution  has  worked  to  produce  three  factors 
in  humanity,  the  mother,  the  father,  and  the 
child;  and  these  together  are  humanity.  And 
these  wonders  of  the  world  have  been  produced 
through  processes,  the  ingenuity  and  intricacy, 
and  the  ramifications  of  which  we  shall  never 
know,  but  whose  beauty  we  are  beginning 
dimly  to  guess  at.  In  briefest  outline  they  are 
these:  From  the  bisexual  cell  which  becomes 
extinct  at  the  birth  of  its  offspring,  through  the 
partly  understood  methods  of  development,  en- 
vironment, natural  selection,  etc.,  to  the  lowest 
organism  in  which  the  sexes  are  divided,  and 
which  pours  out  upon  land  and  water  an  endless 
progeny,  which  offspring  the  progenitors  never 
know, — from  these,  through  countless  higher 
grades,  to  those  in  which  there  is  some,  as  yet 
unmaternal  provision  for  a  more  limited  progeny, 
then  to  a  state  in  which,  through  the  develop- 
ment of  bodily  dependence  of  offspring  on  par- 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      125 

ents,  closer  limitation  of  number  of  offspring,  and 
lengthened  childhood,  maternity  dawns  upon  the 
earth;  while  through  the  necessity  of  protection 
and  food  supply,  paternity  is  born.  And  as  we 
approach  the  condition  of  savage  man,  from  the 
bond  of  the  child,  from  the  common  love  of  their 
offspring,  the  mutual  love  and  sympathy  of 
parent  for  parent  is  evolved.  From  this  date  on, 
the  progress  is  rapid. 

It  is  to  Mr.  Fiske  that  we  are  indebted  for  the  price- 
less contribution  to  our  understanding  of  the  factors  of 
evolution,  in  his  demonstration  of  the  influences  upon 
development  of  the  prolongation  of  childhood.  The 
human  child  brought  love  and  family  life. 

The  averages  for  the  length  of  childhood,  and  for 
the  age  for  marriage,  are  steadily  rising.  In  America, 
we  are  children  until  we  are  twenty-five  or  more  years 
of  age,  and  thirty  is  becoming  a  common  age  for  mar- 
riage. The  higher  the  culture  and  standard  of  life, 
the  later  seems  to  be  the  average  of  these  dates.  In 
China,  children  are  such  while  their  parents  live.  This 
is  largely  due  to  the  honored  place  of  parenthood  in 
that  otherwise,  night-bound  land. 

The  arrest  of  the  body  begins  and  the  develop- 
ment of  spirit.  Childhood  is  long,  children  are 
few,  the  temporary  home  gives  way  to  permanent 


126  The  Great  Mystery 

association.  This  in  turn,  as  Drummond  shows, 
obliterates  seasonal  conception,  and  binds  father 
to  mother  through  the  love  of  their  offspring,  and 
child  to  parent  through  mutual  dependence. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  lengthening  of  the  period 
which  we  have  called  childhood,  has  another  impor- 
tant result.  Among  the  poor  especially,  who  are  al- 
ways in  the  majority,  the  relation  changes  from  one 
where  the  child  depends  on  the  parent,  to  one  where 
the  parent  depends  on  the  child,  thus  completing  the 
circle,  as  it  were. 

And  the  end — no,  the  end  is  not  yet.  But  we 
see,  in  these  our  days,  what  has  at  last  been 
evolved,  through  toil  and  striving  unimaginable, 
the  home  life  of  Christian  lands. 

What  is  this  home  life  ?  It  is  the  life  of  the 
family.  It  is  that  life  which  is  found  where  one 
man  and  one  woman,  having  learned  to  love  each 
other  through  reason,  finding  in  each  other  the 
seeds  of  true  manhood  and  true  womanhood, 
which  will  bear  in  time,  the  fruits  of  faithful 
motherhood  and  fatherhood,  are  living  together 
according  to  the  highest  of  human  ideals,  and 
rearing  children  in  the  same.  "  Physically,  psy- 
chically, ethically,  the  family  is  the  masterpiece 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      127 

of  evolution.  The  creation  of  evolution,  it  was 
destined  to  become  the  most  active  instrument 
and  ally  which  evolution  ever  had.  For  what  is 
its  evolutionary  significance  ?  It  is  the  generator 
and  repositor  of  the  forces  which  alone  can  carry 
out  the  social  and  moral  progress  of  the  world." 
("Ascent  of  Man,"  p.  316.)  All  love,  all  wisdom, 
all  goodness  that  the  world  has  ever  known, 
have  been  its  outgrowth,  and  human  life  will 
never  know  any  holier  or  purer  relationships  than 
those  which  are  latent  in,  and  to  be  revealed 
through  the  life  of  the  family. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  the  place  and  functions  of  the 
sexes  and  of  the  family  in  nature,  not  because  their 
glories  are  the  glories  of  the  grown-up  monad,  for  this, 
evolution  never  teaches.  Mr.  Drummond  has  spoken 
authoritatively  upon  this  subject  in  that  wonderful 
chapter  "Involution"  in  the  Ascent  of  Man,  and 
there  he  compares  evolution  to  a  flowering  plant,  and 
shows  that  as  the  flower  is  not  in  the  root,  neither  is 
the  monad  to  be  looked  for  in  man.  It  is  not  there. 
.  .  .  Evolution  is  a  process  of  accretion  from  en- 
vironment, not  of  growth  from  within.  The  plant  is 
not  the  grown-up  root,  any  more  than  the  root  is  a 
grown-up  flower.  A  diamond  is  not  a  great  big  car- 
bon atom,  neither  is  a  piece  of  coal.  Accretion  has 
made  the  brightest  gem  in  inorganic  nature,  and  ac- 


128  The  Great  Mystery 

cretion,  environment,  or  evolution, — the  painting  hand 
of  God  has  made  the  brightest  jewel  in  organic  life. 

And  what  of  the  future  of  this  holy  thing? 
And  how  are  we  to  tell  what  that  may  be  ?  The 
future  of  humanity  is  bound  up  in  that  of  the 
family.  Humanity  can  never  live  without  it. 
Says  Fiske,  "From  the  first  dawning  of  life,  we 
see  all  things  working  together  toward  one 
mighty  goal,  the  evolution  of  the  most  exalted 
qualities  which  characterize  humanity."  ("The 
Destiny  of  Man,"  p.  113.)  And  Drummond 
says,  more  truly  than  perhaps,  he  ever  knew, 
"Nature  has  produced  a  holy  family.  Not  for 
centuries,  but  for  millenniums,  the  family  has  sur- 
vived. Time  has  not  tarnished  it;  no  later  art 
has  improved  it;  nor  genius  discovered  anything 
more  lovely  nor  religion  anything  more  divine. 
From  the  bee's  cell  and  the  butterfly's  wing  men 
draw  what  they  call  arguments  from  design;  but 
it  is  in  the  kingdoms  that  come  without  observa- 
tion, in  these  great  immaterial  orderings  which 
science  is  but  beginning  to  perceive,  that  the  pur- 
poses of  creation  are  revealed."  ("Ascent  of 
Man,"  p.  318.) 

Scientists  are  quite  agreed  in  believing  that  the 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      129 

evolution  of  the  body  is  slowly  coming  to  a  stand- 
still, and  that  in  it  lie  all  the  possibilities  which 
the  future  human  life  will  require.  It  is  large 
enough  to  have  held  the  life  of  Christ.  Some 
have  even  suggested  the  possibility  of  a  begin- 
ning of  degeneration.  However  this  may  be,  we 
may  be  sure  that  the  future  of  human  evolution 
lies  in  the  development  of  the  higher  reaches  of 
life.  From  now  on,  we  are  to  advance  in  the 
mental,  the  moral,  and  the  spiritual,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  last  named.  The  future  of  man 
is  to  be  a  spiritual  future,  even  in  this  life.  And 
the  three  great  factors  of  that  human  future 
will  be  an  ever  more  spiritual  fatherhood,  mother- 
hood, and  childhood,  an  ever  more  spiritual 
family.  In  that  future,  sexuality  will  be  for- 
gotten in  mutual  love. 

And  how  are  we  to  look  into  this  radiant 
future?  As  the  skilful  archer,  who  with  foot 
planted  on  firm  ground,  with  eager  soul  and 
steadfast  eye,  follows  the  arrow's  flight  to  the  far 
distant  goal. 

We  take  our  stand  at  the  beginning  of  things. 
Straight  as  the  arrow's  flight,  the  trend  of  evolu- 
tion leads  the  eye  along  the  past,  through  the 


130  The  Great  Mystery 

shining  present,  to  the  misty  but  dazzling  goal  of 
the  future. 

It  is  a  vision  that  we  see,  a  pure  and  holy 
thing,  such  as  human  words  can  but  half  de- 
scribe. It  seems  a  world  of  human  homes,  such 
as  few  have  seen,  even  in  dreams.  And  in  each 
home  a  man  and  a  woman  dwells  as  one,  and  the 
bond  between  them  is  a  little  child.  Children 
are  few  in  that  far  distant  land;  (a  thousand  mil- 
lion years  nearer  than  it  seemed  1,900  years  ago;) 
but  these  are  loved  as  only  parents  can  love,  who 
come  of  a  race  that  has  lived  in  chastity  and  peace 
for  ages  past.  Children  are  children  while  their 
parents  live.  All  men  are  equal,  and  all  men  are 
as  brothers,  which,  by  adoption,  they  seem  in- 
deed to  be.  There  are  no  nations  there,  nor  gov- 
ernments, nor  kings;  and  the  only  law  through- 
out that  world  is  love.  The  bodies  of  that  race 
are  much  as  ours,  more  healthy,  cleaner,  sweeter 
to  the  sight,  but  through  their  eyes  shine  out 
such  souls  as  even  God  only  makes  through  end- 
less years  of  toil.  They  understand  the  world  in 
which  they  live,  and  live  as  men  of  wisdom  and 
of  power.  They  understand  the  men  with 
whom  they  dwell,  and  dwell  in  perfect  peace  and 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      131 

charity.  One  thing  above  all  else,  is  prized  and 
cherished  there,  and  that  is  the  life  within  the 
home,  where  three  or  four  live  in  such  harmony 
as  makes  the  life  seem  but  the  life  of  one,  and 
from  it  flow  all  other  life  and  love.  And  every 
morning,  when  the  sun  comes  up,  each  one  in 
three,  all  holy,  father,  mother,  and  child,  clasped 
hand  in  hand,  will  kneel  upon  the  sod,  and  turn 
their  eyes  toward  the  glowing  East,  and  wait 
awhile,  then  rise  and  go  to  earn  their  daily  bread. 
The  work  is  all  but  done. 

When  I  consider  what  one  mother  is,  I  stagger 
at  the  thought  of  what  God  yet  may  do. 


NATURE  has  more  than  one  of  the  decalogue 
boldly  written  in  her  grand  old  book,  but  that 
which  is  perhaps  the  most  easily  deciphered  is  to 
be  found  in  a  chapter  clearly  headed  "Thou 
Shalt  not  Commit  Adultery."  And  this  is  not  all 
of  the  matter,  for  she  has  followed  and  empha- 
sized this  chapter  by  the  plainest  and  most  un- 
compromising of  her  written  curses. 

And  thank  God  that  even  within  the  memory 
of  history  we  trace  a  trend  toward  obedience  to 
His  commandment.  And  the  future  is,  as  ever, 
full  of  promise. 

As  we  turn  back  these  pages  of  the  world's 
history  not  so  very  far,  only  a  page  or  two,  as 
time  runs, — we  come  upon  great  blots  and 
stains,  black  with  the  blood  of  innocence  and 
smeared  with  the  filth  of  lust.  We  read  of 

132 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      133 

Sodom  the  Polluted,  and  of  the  beastly  beauty  of 
Daphne's  Grove;  of  the  Maximian  laws,  the 
vilest  things  that  were  ever  made  by  men,  and  of 
Nero  the  Despised;  of  Borgian  delights,  and  of 
the  passions  of  Henry  VIII.  of  England,  of  the 
passing  worship  of  the  Hindoos  and  on  the  very 
page  on  which  the  pen  of  time  is  writing  to-day, 
we  read  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia  and  their 
police-protected  hells,  and  of  august  delibera- 
tions concerning  the  adoption  of  the  "  practical" 
license  laws  of  Paris,  the  adulteress. 

But  the  light  is  brightening  as  we  read,  and  the 
pages  are  cleaner  one  by  one.  In  the  book  of 
Nature  and  in  the  book  of  Revelation  is  written, 
though  in  differing  language,  one  great  and  iden- 
tical law;  and  in  both  books,  it  is  enforced  by  a 
blessing,  and  by  a  curse.  "  Blessed  are  the  pure 
in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God,"  and  "They  that 
commit  adultery,  their  blood  shall  be  upon 
them." 

Physically  the  family  is  one  flesh  so  long  as  it 
is  inviolate.  Father  and  mother  are  one  and  the 
child  is  one  with  them  and  the  bond  between 
them,  and  the  wedded  life  is  another  bond. 
This  unity  Nature  guards  with  never  flagging 


134  The  Great  Mystery 

care,  and  its  infringement  she  punishes  with  de- 
generation and  death. 

Broadly  she  guards  the  family  life  by  guarding 
the  species  into  which  evolution  has  moulded  it. 
Species  are  protected  from  their  birth  up  and  the 
barrier  wall  is  impassable.  In  the  recent  dis- 
covery that  to  each  species  there  seems  to  be 
apportioned  a  particular  and  invariable  number 
of  chromatin  filaments  to  its  segmentation  nu- 
cleus probably  lies  the  physical  basis  for  the  long 
known  fact  that  the  attempt  to  mix  species  is 
invariably  unproductive  of  viable  offspring. 
Whether  this  be  the  basis  of  the  fact  or  no,  the 
fact  remains. 

The  barriers  which  further  narrow  in  the 
family  unity  are  many  and  varied  and  are 
adapted  to  defend  various  threatened  directions 
of  attack.  The  home  life  of  the  family  is 
guarded  first  by  the  fact,  that  the  consensus  of 
human  opinion  and  the  laws  of  nations  from 
time  immemorial  have  forbidden  consanguineous 
marriages.  The  results  of  the  latest  scientific  in- 
vestigations seem  to  show  that  Nature  also  has 
forbidden  these  marriages,  since  the  risk  of  per- 
petuating and  emphasizing  any  vitiation  is  so 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      135 

greatly  increased  thereby,  as  almost  to  ensure  the 
decay  of  the  family. 

Another  bulwark  of  family  purity  is  built  upon 
the  fact  that  its  assault  results  in  unfitted  fathers 
and  incompetent  mothers  and  consequently  in  ill 
fed,  ill  clothed,  ill  cared  for,  unsurviving  and  de- 
generate children  whose  end  is  the  death  of 
their  line. 

The  last  of  these  natural  defences  of  family 
unity  that  I  shall  mention  is  that  which  brings 
in  its  sentence  not  only  upon  the  innocent  ele- 
ments of  the  family  but  especially  upon  the 
offender  and  guilty  one.  I  speak  of  that  group 
of  organic  diseases  which  the  medical  profession 
has  classified  together  because  of  their  origin  and 
abiding  place  in  the  polluted  lives  of  the  world. 
Within  this  group  are  some  of  the  most  loath- 
some and  disgusting  and  most  destructive  dis- 
eases and  their  complications  to  which  the  body 
of  man  is  heir,  literally  heir,  alas!  too  frequently. 
It  is  true  that  the  innocent  are  often  afflicted  with 
these  curses  of  Nature  but,  in  these  cases,  it  is  al- 
most without  exception  that  the  disease  is  in- 
troduced through  the  agency  of  some  guilty  one. 
In  the  majority  of  cases  the  offender  is  the  hus- 


136  The  Great  Mystery 

band  and  father,  and  there  is  no  exaggeration  in 
saying  that  the  lives  of  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands of  purest  women  and  innocent  children 
are  hopelessly  wrecked  each  year,  because  thus 
sinned  against.  The  largest  percentage  of  cases 
of  the  diseases  peculiar  to  women  are  contracted 
thus  innocently,  and  there  are  more  incurably 
blind  in  our  asylums,  and  these  so  from  their 
birth,  from  this,  than  from  any  other  known 
cause.  It  is  the  physicians  of  the  world  who  see 
and  know  these  things,  and  though  they  have 
done  much  to  relieve  and  save  the  innocent  and 
the  guilty,  it  is  they  again,  who  know  that  the 
radical  cure  is  to  be  found  neither  in  the  salts  of 
mercury  nor  in  the  iodide  of  potassium,  but  in 
that  pure  salt  of  the  earth  that  loses  not  its 
savor,  in  men  and  women  whose  hearts  are 
pure  with  the  love  that  thinketh  no  evil. 

Of  the  various  more  perverted  sins  against 
physical  purity,  I  can  say  no  more  here,  than 
that  there  are  many  such,  and  that  the  wrecks 
they  leave  to  the  care  of  our  private  and  munic- 
ipal insane  asylums  are  ghastly  monuments  to 
the  faithfulness  of  Nature's  sentries. 

But  it  is  not  in  the  physical  alone,  that  Nature 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      137 

will  be  obeyed.  In  the  realm  of  the  higher  life 
as  well,  her  law  is  in  force.  As  there  are  no 
stronger  loves  in  all  Nature,  nor  none  so  strong 
as  those  which  bind  the  family  in  one,  so  there 
are  no  baser  crimes  than  those  which  sin  against 
these  loves.  The  names  of  parricide,  of  matri- 
cide, of  fratricide  and  of  the  unfaithful  to  mar- 
riage vows,  to  innocence,  and  to  purity  of  life, 
the  world  over  are  in  abhorrence.  This  is  true, 
even  among  those  nations  and  tribes  who  have 
never  known  any  other  than  the  commandments 
of  Nature.  The  laws  of  nations  punish  many  of 
these  crimes,  the  laws  of  Nature  punish  all  of 
them.  Our  prisons  and  asylums  swarm  with 
the  dying  proofs  of  Nature's  verdicts,  and  many 
of  the  rotting  lives  that  come  to  the  notice  of  the 
healers  of  souls  and  bodies,  and  to  that  of  no 
others  except  the  aching  hearts  at  home,  bear 
added  testimony.  There  are  habits  which  never 
leave  any  physical  trace  whatever  but  yet  result 
in  total  mental,  moral,  and  spiritual  shipwreck, 
and  there  are  others  which  clog  the  higher 
reactions  and  sympathies  to  an  all  but  incredible 
degree. 
I  was  talking  not  long  ago  with  a  man,  who 


138  The  Great  Mystery 

spoke  freely  to  me  of  his  past  life,  and  rather 
boasted  of  it,  and  especially  of  the  fact  that  he 
had  escaped  "unscathed."  He  was  at  that  time 
engaged  to  be  married  to  a  good  woman  and 
true,  and  was  happy  in  his  good  fortune.  He 
seemed  anxious  that  I  should  concur  in  his  opin- 
ion, that  on  the  whole  he  had  done  pretty  well 
in  having  had  his  times,  and  yet  kept  his  place  as 
a  respected  citizen,  won  the  love  of  a  good 
woman  and  successfully  guarded  his  health ;  and 
was  not  a  little  offended  at  my  sentiments  of  de- 
cided disapproval  of  his  past.  It  was  some  time 
before  I  was  even  able  to  make  him  understand 
that  we  were  looking  at  the  matter  from  directly 
opposite  points  of  view,  that  my  regrets  were, 
far  more  than  for  him,  for  the  women  whom  he 
had  used  for  his  pleasure  and  for  their  ruin,  that 
it  was  over  their  comparative  innocence  that  I 
yearned,  rather  than  his  bribery  and  cowardice 
that  I  regretted.  And  yet  it  is  an  open  question 
whether  the  degradation  of  those  who  sinned 
and  saw,  is  as  great  as  that  of  him  who  sinned 
and  could  not  see.  But  the  view  came  to  him  as 
a  revelation,  for  he  had  looked  upon  those  once 
pure  children,  as  degenerate  though  necessary 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      139 

factors  of  society,  and  supposed  that  his  share  in 
their  ruin  would  be  negated  by  the  fact  that  there 
would  be  fast  women  whether  he  were  virtuous 
or  not. 

That  man  is  now  married  and  may  yet  be  a 
faithful,  happy  husband  and  father,  and  those 
women  are  outcasts  and  pariahs,  women  "taken 
in  adultery."  Yet  let  only  him  that  is  without 
sin  among  us  first  cast  a  stone  at  them,  for  both 
Nature  and  Revelation  have  evolved  ideals  of 
purity  higher  even  than  the  old,  and  the  new 
commandment  reads,  "  Every  one  that  looketh  on 
a  woman  to  lust  after  her  hath  committed  adul- 
tery with  her  already  in  his  heart." 


IX 

God's  Ideals 


STANDING  on  the  heights  of  human  nature,  we 
have  been  tracing  together,  as  best  we  could,  in 
the  light  of  the  truth  that  men  have  striven  for 
and  won,  the  majestic,  slow  development  of 
God's  great  work  through  the  ages.  We  have 
gazed  along  the  narrowing  vistas  of  the  past,  and 
through  them  as  they  widen  into  the  unfinished 
splendor  of  the  present;  and  we  have  peered 
into  the  misty  future,  by  the  search  lights  we 
have  found  in  creation's  trends;  and  that  future 
gives  promise  beyond  all  hopes. 

We  believe  that  God  is  painting  the  image  of 
an  eternal  ideal,  an  ideal  of  life  as  He  knows  it, 
of  life  in  the  highest.  And  these  are  the  lessons 
that  we  have  learned.  That  there  is  no  evidence 
of  the  existence  of  any  life,  organic  or  spiritual, 
high  or  low,  which  does  not  consist  of  three 

140 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      141 

elements,  namely,  a  dual  parenthood  and  off- 
spring therefrom.  That  these  three  elements  are 
universal  in  life  as  we  know  it.  That  these 
three  elements  are  the  necessary  basis  of  all  life. 

We  have  next  learned  that  as  progress  has 
manifested  itself,  there  has  developed  a  separa- 
tion of  the  dual  parenthood  into  two  organisms, 
which  still  later,  we  may  call  persons,  and  that 
these  separated  elements  have  taken  upon  them- 
selves distinct  and  progressively  specializing 
functions  or  lines  of  work;  and  moreover,  that 
there  is  no  evidence  which  points  otherwise  than 
that  these  types,  which  we  have  called  male  and 
female,  will  continually  become  more  and  more 
specialized  and  separate,  and  never  will  and 
never  can  become  alike  or  the  same. 

We  have  learned  too,  that  while  this  separa- 
tion of  the  personality  is  certain  and  progressive, 
there  is  developing  along  with  it,  and  at  the  same 
time  with  it,  a  force  tending  to,  and  compelling 
interdependence  and  unity,  and  that  this  force 
which  in  its  lowest  manifestation  is  physical, 
through  the  compulsion  of  the  third  element  in 
life,  flowers  out  into  that  glorious  thing  we  call 
love.  We  have  learned  that  the  trend  of  love  is 


142  The  Great  Mystery 

to  make,  forever  closer  and  closer,  unity  in  family 
life,  and  that  all  other  loves  are  based  upon  and 
spring  from  this  greatest  of  loves. 

Mr.  Fiske  has  taught  us  that  on  earth  there  will 
never  be  a  higher  creature  than  man;  and  Mr. 
Drummond,  that  the  human  family  is  and  ever 
will  be  the  crowning  glory  of  humanity.  We 
have  seen  too,  that  from  an  unlimited  and  un- 
mothered  offspring,  Nature  has,  with  steady 
hand,  pointed  to  an  ever-limiting  progeny,  an 
ever-lengthening  childhood,  and  an  ever-deepen- 
ing parenthood;  that  strict  monogamy  is  Nature's 
highest  type  of  married  life;  and  that  physically, 
mentally,  morally,  and  spiritually,  men  and 
women  are  equal  in  Nature's  economy,  and 
equally  fitted  to  survive.  And  finally,  we  have 
seen  that,  as  the  human  organism  shows  unmis- 
takable signs  of  arrest,  it  becomes  manifest  that 
the  future  development  of  the  family  will  lie  in 
creation's  higher  reaches,  in  the  mental,  moral, 
and  spiritual,  and  that  the  ideal  or  highest  reaches 
will  be  spiritual. 

This  is  what  Nature  teaches  of  God's  ideal  of 
life.  It  is  this  that  the  artist  has  painted  into 
his  work. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      143 

If  God  be  life  in  the  highest,  and  it  is  not 
reasonable  to  suppose  otherwise,  for  His  is  the 
conceptive  mind;  if  the  mind  of  God  be  rational, 
and  ours  are  insane  if  we  can  think  otherwise;  if 
we  have  read  the  trends  of  Nature  aright,  and  I 
think  the  chances  for  doubt  are  very  slight;  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  is  hardly  reasonable  or  pos- 
sible for  us  to  come  to  any  other  conclusion  than 
that  this  ideal  of  highest  life,  of  finished  work,  is 
represented  in  the  very  life  of  the  eternal  God, 
for  it  is  not  conceivable  that  such  a  mind,  a  mind 
neither  hampered  by  frailties  nor  restricted  by 
misconceptions,  should  deliberately,  and  with 
infinity  of  purpose,  draw  up  the  plans  for  His 
greatest  work  on  any  other  than  the  purest  lines 
or  from  any  but  the  highest  type.  It  is  not 
rational  that  God  should  know  of  a  better  life, 
and  make  through  the  ages  a  less  good;  that  He 
should  be  the  eternal  ideal,  and  bring  about  a 
degeneration.1  Nor  is  it  at  all  likely  that  He 
should  develop  special  universal  ideas,  to  fit  a 
purposed  creation,  but  rather  that  He  should  bring 

1  This  truth  of  analogy  is  probably  far  broader  even  than  its 
application  to  the  question  we  are  discussing,  and  therefore  ap- 
plicable to  other  possible  truths  about  God  and  His  nature. 


144  The  Great  Mystery 

the  creation  to  fit  His  ideals.  It  is  the  wisdom 
of  humanity  to  sing  and  paint  and  write  and 
teach  the  best  it  knows,  to  create  the  image  of 
its  highest  ideals,  and  the  God  of  our  wisdom 
cannot  be  less,  wise  than  His  image. 

This  conception  of  God  is  not  opposed  to  Cosmic 
Theism.  As  Doctor  Wace  says,  "There  seems,  in 
fact,  to  lurk  an  extraordinary  sophism  in  the  offence 
which  is  taken  at  so-called  anthropomorphism.  Men 
observe  the  operation  of  the  inanimate  forces  of  nature, 
and  deduce  from  them  the  methods  of  God's  opera- 
tion. There,  they  will  say,  you  observe  the  course  of 
His  action ;  and  you  notice  its  absolute  regularity,  and 
the  absence  of  any  indication  that  we  can  detect  of  its 
disturbance  by  personal  action  or  will.  But  the  mo- 
ment the  moralist,  or  the  theologian,  points  to  another 
sphere  of  nature — that  of  human  nature,  which  is  na- 
ture still — and  argues  from  it  in  a  similar  manner,  re- 
garding it  as  a  revelation  of  part  at  all  events,  of  God's 
method  of  action,  we  are  denounced  as  anthropo- 
morphic. Be  it  so.  But  what  is  the  scientific  con- 
ception but — if  I  may  be  allowed  to  coin  the  word — 
physico-morphism  ?  They  see  the  likeness  and  reflec- 
tion of  God  in  nature ;  we  see  the  image  and  reflection 
of  God  in  man ;  and  why  not  the  one  as  well  as  the 
other?"  ("The  Gospel  and  Its  Witnesses, "  p.  103.) 


X 

The  Image  in  the  Glass 


To  hear  chords  sounding  in  the  herd's  deep  lowing,1 
To  taste  that  daily  bread  is  twice  life  giving,2 
To  feel  that  air  is  less  than  we  are  breathing,3 

And  see  a  vision  where  the  west  wind's  blowing ;  * 

To  know  that  there  is  knowledge  past  the  knowing,5 
To  live  since  life  is  more  than  human  living,6 
To  speak  and  write  what  we  are  thus  receiving 

Nor  reaping  to  refuse  in  turn  the  sowing ; 7 

For  this  we  are ; 8  and  we  and  all  that  hand 

And  eye  and  mind  and  soul  can  grasp  but  speak 
An  imaged  life9 — and  these  are  but  the  glass.10 
And  every  best,  of  sky  and  sea  and  land 

Will  fade  and  go11 — the  glass  itself  will  break.12 
The  imaged  life  alone  will  never  pass.13 

1  Father  and  Creator,  Ps.  1.  9,          «  Son,  Mark  xiv.  22. 
and  Gen.  i.  25.  3  Holy  Spirit,  Birth  through 

4  One  God,  2  Sam.  xxii.  II.  the  Spirit,  John  xx.  22. 

6  Love,  Eph.  iii.  19.  «  Knowledge,  John  xvii.  3. 

7  Faith,  I  John  i.  3.  8  Hope,  Matt.  vii.  7. 

9  Revelation,  Ps.  xix.  10  Nature,  I  Cor.  xiii.  12. 

11  End  of  things   temporal,  12  Death,  I  Cor.  xv.  22. 

Matt.  xxiv.  35.  w  Immortality,  Col.  iii.  3. 
145 


XI 

Ideas   About   God 


WHAT  are  the  ideas  of  men  about  God,  and 
whence  did  men  derive  them  ?  From  the  far-off 
dawn  when  primaeval  men  first  conceived  the 
most  shadowy  notions  of  invisible  powers  out- 
side and  beyond  themselves,  and  began  to  per- 
sonify these  powers,  we  may  say  that  men  have 
had  ideas  about  God,  and  it  was  in  Nature's 
school  that  these  were  learned.  From  that  time, 
and  for  century  upon  century,  the  light  has  been 
slowly  breaking  over  the  life  of  the  world,  until 
a  certain  hour,  nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  when 
the  Sun  arose  in  all  his  splendor,  and  on  the 
mountain  peaks,  men  no  longer  guessed,  but 
knew  God;  and  ever  since  that  eternal  sunrise, 
the  shadows  have  been  fleeing  away. 

It  was  Nature  that  first  taught  men  about  God, 
and  through  the  opening  book  of  Nature  alone, 

146 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      147 

the  greater  part  of  men  have  seen  Him.  Some- 
times hers  is  a  still  small  voice,  when  she  speaks 
of  righteousness  and  peace,  and  again,  in  awful 
diapason  she  proclaims  that  God  is  Wisdom  and 
Power.  In  the  ages  of  creation,  men  learn  that 
God  is  eternal.  In  the  unity  of  all  things,  they 
see  that  He  is  immanent.  Through  progress, 
they  learn  that  He  lives;  through  goodness,  that 
He  is  righteous;  through  reason,  that  He  is  Mind 
and  Wisdom.  In  the  faithfulness  of  Nature,  they 
learn  that  God  is  Truth;  in  the  reaches  of  Evolu- 
tion, they  see  that  He  is  Spirit;  and  Jesus  has 
shown  them  in  the  words  of  Nature  and  in  the 
needs  of  men,  that  God  is  Father  and  that  God  is 
Son. 

It  is  thus  that  men  have  come  to  know  God 
through  Nature,  by  the  observation  of  ideals,  as 
He  has  written  them  and  is  writing  them  through- 
out the  pages  of  her  book,  and  by  applying  them 
through  reason  to  Him.  Men  have  seen  these 
grand  ideals,  and  recognized  their  universality, 
have  applied  them,  and  know  their  reasonable- 
ness, and  have  said,  "This  is  of  God."  "This 
is  the  nature  of  God."  Some  men  know  that 
God  is  Power,  Wisdom,  and  Truth,  that  He  is 


148  The  Great  Mystery 

Righteousness,  Purity  and  Life,  that  He  is  Light, 
Peace,  and  Love,  that  He  is  universal,  immanent, 
and  eternal, — Spirit  and  Law, — Father  and  Son. 
"  The  lesson  of  evolution  is  that  through  all  these 
weary  ages  the  Human  Soul  has  not  been  cher- 
ishing in  religion  a  delusive  phantom,  but  in  spite 
of  seemingly  endless  groping  and  stumbling,  it 
has  been  rising  to  the  recognition  of  its  essential 
kinship  with  the  ever-living  God. "  x  "Evolution  is 
Advolution;  better,  it  is  Revelation, — the  phenom- 
enal expression  of  the  Divine, — the  progressive 
realization  of  the  Ideal,  the  Ascent  of  Love."  2 

We  think  that  in  the  preceding  sections,  we 
have  traced  out  other  ideals  of  God's  life,  written 
on  every  page  of  Nature's  book,  becoming  plainer 
and  more  majestic  through  the  ages,  growing 
higher,  clearer,  and  purer,  as  she  reaches  into  the 
present  times,  and  giving  promise  of  marvelous 
consummation  in  the  years  yet  unborn;  ideals  of 
surpassing  beauty,  ideals  universal,  eternal,  and 
perfected;  ideals  of  the  very  God  who  is  perfect. 

And  these  are  the  conclusions  that  we  may 
draw  from  our  study  of  the  Book  of  Nature. 

1  "  Through  Nature  to  God,"  Fiske,  p.  191. 
8  "  Ascent  of  Man,"  Drummond,  p.  339. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      149 

God's  is  a  spiritual  life,  and  a  life  complete  in  it- 
self, that  is,  it  consists  of  three  elements,  certainly 
not  less,  and  certainly  not  more;  and  these  three 
elements  do  now  and  forever  stand  in  relation- 
ship to  each  other  as  eternal  Father,  Mother,  and 
Begotten.  God's  life  is  a  complete  unity,  and  the 
bond  which  makes  it  such  is  consummated  Family 
love.  We  may  infer  that  this  love  is  the  basis  of 
God's  love  for  created  things.  We  may  also  in- 
fer that  the  Begotten  of  God  is  limited,  and  al- 
though Nature  does  not  thus  far  teach  that  it  is 
limited  to  one  Personality,  one  such  Begotten  One 
satisfies  all  possible  indications  of  Nature's  teach- 
ings. 

This  is  the  God  of  Nature,  the  natural  God,  the 
satisfaction  of  every  kind  of  thought,  or  creed. 
We  are  told  in  the  paper  of  which  this  is  the 
companion,  that  the  threefold  nature  of  God 
forms  the  basis  of  perhaps  all  the  great  religions 
of  the  world,  and  though  this  is  not  a  proof  in 
itself,  it  certainly  demonstrates  the  reasonableness 
of  the  faith  to  the  human  intellect.  This  reason- 
ableness may  also  be  demonstrated  through  an- 
other and  entirely  different  channel,  namely 
through  the  logical  method  of  philosophic 


150  The  Great  Mystery 

thought.  Let  me  quote  two  passages  from  one 
of  the  clearest  writers  of  the  present  day,  on 
philosophic  religion,  Dr.  A.  J.  Mason,  and  ask 
you  to  read  our  truth  into  the  words  of  the 
writer,  who,  by  the  way,  never  hints  at  the  truth 
itself,  and  probably  had  no  thought  of  it  in  con- 
nection with  the  subject  of  which  he  wrote,  the 
Holy  Trinity,  and  let  me  ask  you  also,  to  judge 
for  yourself  whether  truth  fits  truth,  or  no. 

"God  is  love.  That  is  His  essence.  And  love 
is  not  love  without  exercise.  Until  it  finds  an 
object,  there  is  but  a  capacity  for  love,  not  love 
itself.  If  God,  therefore,  had  no  object  for  His 
love  until  He  had  formed  a  creation,  then  God 
has  not  always  been  love — is  not  love  by  Him- 
self in  His  own  nature,  but  only  (so  to  speak) 
accidentally,  through  the  circumstances  in  which 
He  finds  Himself.  And  even  now,  if  creation 
be  the  sole  object  of  God's  love,  He  cannot  find 
in  it  adequate  exercise  for  the  whole  of  His  love. 
For  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  creation 
is,  or  can  be,  infinite.  It  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  the  total  fulness  of  God's  being  can 
ever  be  expressed  in  that  which  God  makes. 
Therefore,  although  infinite  love  is  at  work  in 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      151 

every  part  of  creation,  yet  the  exercise  of  it  upon 
creation  is  not  infinite.  There  remains  behind 
an  infinite  reserve  of  love,  which  never  can  be 
expended  to  the  blessed  satisfaction  of  God  upon 
any  existing  thing  which  falls  short  of  Himself. 
And  if  we  say  that  before  creation  was,  the  infi- 
nite love  of  God  was  infinitely  expended  upon 
Himself,  we  cannot  but  feel  that  such  an  expres- 
sion would  be  shocking  to  all  our  best  instincts, 
if  God  is  a  single  person.  A  monstrous  selfish- 
ness is  the  only  picture  which  such  language 
could  suggest.  It  can  only  be  morally  true  to 
say  that  God  loves  Himself,  if  there  be  eternally 
within  the  Divine  nature  a  real  distinction  of 
persons,  whereby  one  Divine  person  may  lavish 
the  infinite  wealth  of  His  love  upon  another 
Divine  person,  who  is  infinitely  worthy  of  re- 
ceiving it. 

"It  may,  of  course,  be  said  that  we  are  judging 
from  what  we  know  of  limited,  human  exist- 
ence; and  that  what  applies  to  a  limited  being 
need  not  perforce  apply  to  an  infinite,  a  Divine 
being.  This  is  quite  true:  but  at  the  same  time, 
if  man  is  made  in  the  image  of  God,  we  have 
some  right  to  form  conceptions  about  His  nature 


152  The  Great  Mystery 

from  our  own,  within  due  and  reverent  limits. 
And  if,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  are  wrong  in 
this  particular  conception  and  it  should  at  length 
burst  upon  us  as  true  that  God  is  a  monad,  a 
unit,  but  aware,  before  all  creation  of  His  own  ex- 
istence, cognizant  of  the  fulness  of  His  powers, 
and  eternally  exercising  a  paternal  love,  we  can 
only  say  that  such  a  state  of  things  would  not 
only  transcend  our  experience  and  thought,  but 
that  it  would  contradict  it.  Assuming  the  Arian 
belief  to  be  true,  nothing  within  our  reach  leads 
us  in  the  direction  of  the  true  belief,  or  gives  us 
any  hint  that  may  afterward  be  developed  into 
knowledge.  Quite  the  contrary.  Hard  though 
it  may  be  to  understand  the  Church  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity,  it  is  much  harder  to  conceive  how 
God  could  be  eternally  love,  if  He  were  a  solitary 
unit." 1  ("  The  Faith  of  the  Gospel,"  pp.  41-43.) 
"Unless,  therefore,  we  are  to  take  refuge  in 
supposing  that  God  is  not  self-sufficient,  but  is 
only,  as  Pantheism  fancies,  gradually  coming  to 
know  Himself  by  means  of  the  world,  we  are 

1  I  have  submitted  this  passage  to  the  judgment  of  one  who 
is  better  trained  than  I,  in  philosophic  thought,  and  he  assures 
me  that  the  logic  of  the  argument  is  sound  and  irrefutable. 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      153 

drawn  to  believe,  with  the  Church,  that  God 
contains  in  His  own  being  both  subject  and 
object.  We  human  beings  find  ourselves  set 
off  by  the  world  of  which  we  form  part;  but 
God  must  be  set  off  to  Himself  by  something 
within  His  own  nature.  He  must  be  presented 
to  His  own  contemplation.  There  must  be  some 
movement  by  which  eternally  He  is  reflected  to 
Himself.  God  must  be  ever  inwardly  projected, 
reproduced, — or  rather  projecting,  reproducing 
Himself;  not  by  a  succession  of  fresh  reproduc- 
tions, for  we  have  no  right  to  say  that  with  God, 
there  is  any  succession,  but  by  one  act  of  repro- 
duction, complete  and  abiding,  yet  ever  new,  as 
if  the  one  act  were  always  in  the  living  process 
of  being  performed.  Thus  there  must  ever  con- 
front Him  somewhat  which  is  at  once  Himself 
and  not  Himself,  which  He  can  regard  as  em- 
bodying His  own  whole  being,  while  still  (in  a 
sense)  separate  from  and  contrasted  with,  that 
which  in  the  first  instance  is  the  'I,'  the  'Ego' 
of  God. 

"But  if  there  is  to  be  such  a  reflection  of  God  to 
Himself,  the  reflection  must  needs  be  personal, 
in  the  same  sense  in  which  God  Himself  is  per- 


154  The  Great  Mystery 

sonal.  God  would  in  no  true  way  be  represented 
to  Himself  by  a  mere  picture  or  image  in  a  mir- 
ror, so  to  speak,  lifeless,  and  without  power  to 
respond  to  Him.  It  is  inconceivable  that  there 
should  be  within  the  nature  of  God  anything 
which  is  not  life;  and  even  if  it  were  conceivable, 
a  lifeless  image  of  God  would  return  to  Him,  not 
only  an  inadequate,  but  a  totally  false  vision  of 
Himself.  That  which  truly  reproduces  God  must 
be  to  Him,  not  '  It '  but  'Thou';  and  God  in 
turn  must  be  '  Thou '  to  that  which  reproduces 
Him.  And  if  God  is  truly  to  know  Himself,  the 
living  image  which  is  before  Him  must  be  in. 
every  respect  worthy  of  Him,  that  is,  equal  to 
Him.  Any  partial  representation  of  God  falls  in- 
finitely short  of  Him;  and  no  number  of  finite 
and  partial  representations  could  mount  up  so  as 
to  supply  the  deficiency.  No  part  of  God's  per- 
fections and  possibilities  can  at  any  time  be 
absent  from  His  consciousness;  and  they  cannot 
be  present  to  it  in  infinite  detail  without  being 
present  in  their  complete  unity.  Therefore  of 
necessity  that  absolute  reproduction  by  which 
God  is  set  before  His  own  eyes  must  be  God,  be- 
cause otherwise,  God's  self-knowledge  would 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      155 

fall  infinitely  short  of  the  truth.     Nothing  but 
God  can  represent  God. 

"  Thus  we  seem  led  even  by  reason,  apart  from 
revelation  to  see  the  need  of  a  duality  in  the 
Divine  nature.  But  we  are  unable  to  rest  here. 
Although  the  next  step  in  thought  is  less  easy  to 
express  in  words,  the  mind  naturally  demands  a 
bond  between  the  'I'  and  the  'Thou/  by 
which  they  are  to  know  themselves  as  '  I '  and 
'Thou.'  There  is,  in  the  Godhead  the  subject 
and  the  object;  but  how  are  they  related  to  each 
other?  Duality  gives  us  only  the  notion  of  sep- 
aration. If  there  were  no  other  movement  in  the 
Divine  nature  but  that  whereby  the  first  person 
projects  himself  into  a  second,  the  two  might, 
for  all  we  can  see,  be  left  forever  gazing  upon 
each  other,  without  knowing  the  difference  be- 
tween themselves,  without  mutual  sympathy, 
and  therefore  without  freedom  of  intercourse. 
A  God  whose  nature  was  but  dual  could  hardly 
to  our  thinking,  rise  to  as  high  a  level  of  intelli- 
gence as  man's.  There  might  be  mutual  ob- 
servation and  attraction;  but  not  the  conscious- 
ness either  of  antithesis  or  of  union.  In  order 
that  God  may  be  complete  and  self-sufficing, 


156  The  Great  Mystery 

there  must  be  within  the  unity  of  His  nature  a 
process  which  establishes  mutual  knowledge  and 
along  with  mutual  knowledge,  mutual  love.  We 
shall  expect  to  find  the  movement  whereby  God 
places  Himself  before  Himself,  followed  up  by  a 
movement  whereby  He  makes  Himself  fully 
known,  in  all  His  lovableness  and  wisdom,  to 
the  object  thus  set  before  Him,  and  receives  back 
the  response  of  that  object.  And  we  may  per- 
haps dimly  apprehend  how  this  mediation  be- 
tween the  Divine  T  and  'Thou'  should  itself 
be  fitly  the  work  of  a  person.  Were  it  not  so, 
there  would  be  one  view  (so  to  speak)  of  God, 
which  He  would  not  Himself  be  able  to  gain.  He 
would  not  have  the  blessedness  of  seeing  Himself 
effect  that  union  that  is  within  Himself.  And  as 
we  saw  that  the  object  in  which  God  is  repro- 
duced to  Himself  must  be  in  all  points  equal  with 
God,  so  the  person  who  mediates  between  the 
two,  must  be  in  all  points  the  equal  of  either,  or 
He  could  not  adequately  interpret  the  one  to  the 
other.  //  seems  to  put  the  completing  touch  to 
the  glory  of  the  Divine  life,  when  we  see  person 
and  person  eternally  made  known  to  each  other, 
in  their  difference  and  in  their  unity,  by  a  person 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      157 

to  whom  both  are  absolutely  known,  and  who  is 
absolutely  one  with  both."  ("The  Faith  of  the 
Gospel,"  pp.  43-46.) 

Even  if  we  cannot  build  our  faith  on  such 
close  and  intricate  reasoning  as  this,  it  would 
seem  as  if  two  questions  about  God  would  in- 
evitably arise  in  every  human  soul,  questions 
growing  out  of  its  own  most  sacred  needs  and 
cravings, — Why  should  the  nature  of  God  alone 
have  no  complemental  reactive  life?  Why 
should  the  nature  of  God  alone  have  no  Begotten 
One, — not  to  succeed  Him,  but  to  be  of  Him  ?  In 
our  human  relationships,  the  higher  we  ascend, 
the  more  we  crave  them ;  the  more  spiritual  we 
become,  the  more  they  mean  to  us;  the  more 
divine  we  become,  the  more  we  feel  that  they 
are  indispensable  to  our  fullest  life. 

It  is  because  God's  nature  is  love,  that  He  is 
one.  Love  is  the  bond  that  makes  His  unity. 
It  is  because  God's  nature  is  love  that  He  is 
three.  Love  is  the  reason  that  makes  Him 
Trinity. 


XII 

A  Parable 


MANY,  many  years  ago,  there  was  a  king  called 
Agape,  because  he  loved  his  people.  His  king- 
dom was  broad  and  rich,  yet  the  possession 
which  he  loved  the  best  was  a  small  and  arid 
island  in  the  middle  sea.  He  had  often  visited 
this  island,  but  ever  in  disguise  and  unknown  to 
the  wild  men  who  dwelt  there,  for  it  was  his 
greatest  desire  that  this  people  should  learn  to 
know  him  through  his  works  alone. 

Therefore,  from  the  day  when  first  he  became 
possessed  of  its  rugged  shores,  the  king  sent 
thither  many  trained  gardeners  with  seeds  and 
grain  and  roots  innumerable,  and  all  other  things 
needful,  and  so,  before  many  years  had  passed, 
great  trees  had  sprung  up,  to  temper  the  summer 
suns,  and  countless  fields  were  yellow  with 
wheat  and  every  grain,  and  the  people  had  bread, 

158 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      159 

and  ate  no  longer  the  rough  sea  food;  and  the 
very  rocks  were  clothed  with  the  greenest  grass. 
All  this  the  king  did,  and  more.  And  the  people 
knew  him  somewhat  through  his  works,  they 
knew  that  there  were  trees  and  grass  and  wheat 
and  many  good  things  in  the  king's  own  gardens, 
for  all  these  things  were  of  him. 

And  later  on,  he  caused  to  be  planted  there 
myriads  of  lovely  flowers  of  every  tint  and  shade. 
Flowers  bloomed  from  end  to  end,  and  shore  to 
shore  of  that  most  blessed  isle,  and  the  gardeners 
showed  the  people  that  flowers  had  been  with 
them  since  that  far-off  day,  when  the  king  began 
to  rule.  For  every  grass  blade  had  its  little 
flower,  and  the  trees  and  the  grain  had  theirs,  for 
in  the  flower  was  life,  and  there  was  nothing 
that  grew  but  by  the  power  of  the  life  in  the 
flower.  But,  strange  to  say,  the  people  never 
saw  the  king  in  these;  and  they  said,  "In  the 
king's  gardens  there  are  no  flowers.  Why  should 
there  be  ?  " 

Then  there  appeared  upon  the  land  a  new 
flower,  the  loveliest  ever  seen,  and  no  fairer  ever 
blossomed  there.  And  they  called  it  lily,  and  it 
was  full  of  grace  and  very  white.  And  the  lilies 


160  The  Great  Mystery 

filled  the  land  with  the  carol  of  their  fragrance, 
and  men  knew  that  the  lily  was  the  best  of  all  the 
flowers.  But  they  still  said,  "  There  are  no  lilies 
in  the  king's  gardens.  Why  should  there  be  ?" 

And  afterward  the  king  sent  his  son  to  that 
far-off  land,  and  he  told  the  people  many  things 
of  the  king,  but  chiefly  that  his  father  loved 
them,  and  that  he  loved  them  himself,  and  that 
another  loved  them,  and  that  there  were  three 
that  abode  in  the  king's  palace,  the  king  himself, 
and  the  king's  son,  and  in  its  innermost  courts, 
one  that  is  purer  than  the  whitest  snow,  more  full 
of  grace  than  all  the  flowers,  so  precious  in  the 
eyes  of  the  king,  that  merely  to  throw  a  shadow 
on  that  purity,  is  past  all  forgiveness. 

But  the  people  only  said  "It  is  a  mystery! 
We  cannot  tell  what  this  purest  thing  may  be! " 


XIII 

"  For  the  Tree  is  Known  by  its  Fruit " — 
(Matt.  xii.  31-33.) 


IF  it  be  indeed  eternal  truth,  written  by  God 
the  Father,  throughout  all  Nature's  book,  and  by 
God  the  Son,  in  the  gospel  of  Sonship,  that  God 
is  also  Mother-God;  that  the  very  God  is  three 
persons  and  yet  One  through  perfect  love;  you 
may  know,  if  you  will,  this  tree  as  Truth,  and  no 
man  can  uproot  it.  Therefore,  neither  fear  it, 
nor  accept  it,  until  you  have  tasted  of  the  fruit  it 
bears.  Try  it,  not  as  gold  by  fire,  but  as  the 
fresh  fruit  of  the  earth  that  gives  life  and  health 
and  strength  to  all  that  eat  thereof. 

Open  the  eyes  of  your  mind  to  it  in  all  its 
purity  and  majesty.  Read  it  into  history,  the- 
ology, philosophy.  Has  it  a  place  in  these  ? 
Read  it  into  nature  where  the  lion  hunts  beneath 
the  desert  sun  and  where  the  eagles  are  nesting 
close  to  eternal  snows,  where  the  doves  are 

161 


162  The  Great  Mystery 

cooing  in  the  yellow  wheat,  and  the  cricket  sings 
his  home  song  on  the  glowing  hearth.  Is  it  in 
harmony  with  these?  Read  it  into  life  when 
hardy  Boers  shall  fight  and  die  for  freedom  in 
their  homes  across  the  Vaal.  Take  it  to  your 
own  home  and  look  into  your  mother's  eyes  and 
see  if  God  is  in  your  mother's  love. 

What  one  great  need  has  every  human  life  ? 
Has  God  alone  no  complement  ?  Was  there 
ever  a  religion  of  the  least  beauty  among  men 
which  did  not  even  dimly  seek  to  preach  some 
echo  of  this  message  ? 

Read  it  into  humanity  and  the  needs  of  men 
and  women  for  ideals  of  faithful  wedded  life,  of 
greater  honor  and  loyalty  to  parents,  of  wiser, 
more  loving  parenthood,  of  perfect  peace  at 
home.  We  hear  not  enough  of  ideals  in  these 
practical  days,  when  men  find  it  "  necessary  "  to 
license  women  to  be  ruined,  body  and  soul,  as  a 
practical  expedient;  when  for  every  selfish  whim, 
there  are  ten  divorce  courts  for  practical  reasons,1 

1 "  Marriage  on  earth  seems  such  a  counterfeit, 
Mere  imitation  of  the  inimitable  : 
In  heaven  they  have  the  real  and  true  and  sure. 
'Tis  there  they  neither  marry  nor  are  given 
In  marriage  but  are  as  the  angels :  right, 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      163 

whereas,  by  its  very  nature,  one  thing  only  can 
destroy  a  marriage,  and  that,  what  the  court 
licenses;  when  men  will  have  more  children  than 
they  are  able  either  to  love  or  to  feed;  or,  what 
is  worse,  will  have  no  child  at  all,  because  it  is  a 
practical  age,  and  "women  were  meant  to  use 
their  brains."  I  do  not  quarrel  with  the  word 
Practical.  Let  us  be  as  practical  as  the  times  de- 
mand and  more  so,  if  we  know  how;  let  us  use 
our  minds,  but  let  us  set  our  ideals  no  lower  than 
the  mind  of  God  Himself,  whose  mind  in  this, 
we  know. 

Read  it  for  truth,  by  the  blazing  light  of  evolu- 
tion. Can  you  fail  to  see  it  there  ?  Read  it  into 
every  worthy  book  you  ever  read.  Do  they  read 
as  well  without  it  ?  Read  it  into  Drummond, 

Oh  how  right  that  is,  how  like  Jesus  Christ 

To  say  that !     Marriage-making  for  the  earth, 

With  gold  so  much, — birth,  power,  repute  so  much, 

Or  beauty,  youth  so  much,  in  lack  of  these  ! 

Be  as  the  angels  rather,  who,  apart, 

Know  themselves  into  one,  are  found  at  length 

Married,  but  marry  never,  no,  nor  give 

In  marriage ;  they  are  man  and  wife  at  once 

When  the  true  time  is." 

— Browning.  From  Pompilia.  The 
Ring  and  the  Book.  See  also  Par- 
adise Lost,  Book  VIII.,  620-629. 


164  The  Great  Mystery 

Fiske,  Tennyson,  Browning,  Mason,  Brooks, 
Trench,  Kingsley,  Robertson,  Liddon,  and  a  host 
of  others.  Are  they  richer  for  its  truth  or  no  ? 
Never  strain  your  eyes!  Simply  read  it  in  these 
lights,  and  in  every  other  light.  Truth  must  ever 
fit  with  truth.  Truth  must  ever  read  the  clearer 
by  the  light  of  truth.  Be  sure  that  the  light  is 
true. 

Read  it  into  the  life  of  Jesus,  by  the  light 
which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world.  Is  it  there  or  no  ? 

It  may  be  you  will  never  see  it.  It  may  be 
that  you  saw  it  long  ago ;  I  believe  that  many  have 
done  so.  As  for  me,  my  reason  demands  it,  and 
my  soul  as  well.  I  think 

"  I  am  not  free 

To  say  I  see  not,  for  the  glory  comes 
Nightly  and  daily,  like  the  flowing  sea." 

I  see  in  that  glory  an  ideal  of  God,  such  as  my 
mind  never  before  comprehended.  I  see  in  it, 
the  God  of  human  needs,  and  the  God  of  all  that 
lives,  the  only  God  of  nature.  I  see  in  it  the 
God  of  all  the  seekers  after  truth,  and  of  all  the 
honest  doubters  too. 
And  I  seem  to  see  therein,  the  Trinity  as  pro- 


Study  in  the  Book  of  Nature      165 

claimed  by  Christ;  the  Father,  who  "so  loved 
the  world,  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son," 
and  who,  to  that  unspeakable  gift,  added  yet 
another,  the  gift  of  the  All  Holy  and  Precious 
One,  to  be  the  nursing  mother  of  the  "orphans." 
And  I  seem  to  see  that  Holy  One,  as  a  dove 
descending,  and  to  hear  that  Spirit  voice  from 
the  open  heavens,  saying  "Thou  art  My  beloved 
Son." 

"  I  fear  no  more.     The  clouded  face 

Of  Nature  smiles  ;  through  all  her  things 
Of  time  and  space  and  sense  I  trace 
The  moving  of  the  Spirit's  wings, 
And  hear  the  song  of  hope  she  sings."  l 

1  (Revelation,  J.  G.  Whittier.) 


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